Holy Abortions
What if God prescribed a particular ritual by which his priests were to administer blessed abortifacients and perform ceremonies which resulted in the termination of pregnancies? Could we call such procedures “holy abortions?”
Modern evangelicals often assume that the Bible is anti-abortion because they are. Abortion is probably the single biggest moral issue that unites them in outrage as well as action. But upon what Biblical evidence is all of their anti-abortion fury based? What is the Bible’s actual stance on abortion? It is an issue never directly addressed within the text, but a small handful of verses have been (mis)applied to the debate:
- Jeremiah 1:5 and Psalm 139:13, which include poetic references to growth in the womb, have been stretched to prohibit abortion
- Exodus 21:22 has been deliberately misread to hide the fact that it does not equate even a forced abortion with murder
For the evangelical abortion position, these passages are, at best, ambiguous. It is kind of silly to see hidden moral law in either of the first two, and you have to read the third with your eyes closed to see a prohibition on voluntary abortion. In fact, the passage that speaks most clearly and directly about abortion is Numbers 5:11- (NRSV):
The LORD spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the Israelites and say to them: If any man’s wife goes astray and is unfaithful to him, if a man has had intercourse with her but it is hidden from her husband, so that she is undetected… if a spirit of jealousy comes on him, and he is jealous of his wife, though she has not defiled herself; then the man shall bring his wife to the priest…
Then the priest shall bring her before the LORD; the priest shall take holy water in an earthen vessel and take some of the dust that is on the floor of the tabernacle and put it into the water… In his own hand the priest shall have the water of bitterness that brings the curse. Then the priest shall make her take an oath, saying “if no man has lain with you, if you have not turned aside to uncleanness while under your husband’s authority, be immune to this water of bitterness that brings the curse.
But if you have gone astray while under your husband’s authority, if you have defiled yourself and some man other than your husband has had intercourse with you,” – let the priest make the woman take the oath of the curse and say to the woman – “the LORD make you an execration and an oath among your people, when the LORD makes your uterus drop, your womb discharge; no may this water that brings the curse enter your bowels and make your womb discharge, your uterus drop!” And the woman shall say, “Amen. Amen.”
To summarize: if a man suspects his wife of cheating on him, he takes her to the priest of God, who presides over this elaborate trial by ordeal designed to abort any bastard child she might be carrying and curse her as an example.
The Bible is not the beginning and end for any serious ethical debate in the modern age. Modern evangelicals can still hold and argue pro-life positions, but they need to recognize that the Bible does not support them.
NOTE: I am definitely NOT trying to raise the entire ethical debate over abortion here, because that debate never seems to go anywhere, especially on the internet. It is just too hard of an issue. But this literary/historical aspect is much easier. The Bible is not nearly as anti-abortion as modern evangelicals are. In fact, the most relevant parts of it are strikingly pro-abortion. That is worth noting and discussing.
Actually, the Bible is much more pro-abortion than I am. I would never think that it is okay to force a woman to have an abortion against her will. I can’t imagine a situation in which that would be the moral thing to do.
Holy cats. Just goes to show I never read all of Numbers. ;)
This would seem to be an argument against patterning your behavior and moral code around Bronze Age folk wisdom.
There is quite a bit of stuff in the Bible that somehow didn’t make the cut in Sunday school. I can’t quite figure out why there was never a lesson about David and Jonathan having sex with each other. The flannel board possibilities would have been endless….
It seems so obvious now, but I remember early on when I began to think, gee, maybe I (gasp) disagree with some of the teachings of the Bible… it was a big step.
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Kolby, you crack me up. I think Song of Solomon has some great memory verses/pick up lines. “Your stature is like that of the palm, and your breasts like clusters of fruit.”
I guess it was the early version of ‘those baggy sweatpants/and the Reeboks with the strap/she turned around and gave that big booty a slap.’
I was going to comment on this post, but frankly, the way you and your commenters mock Scripture is a more than a little off-putting.
Needless to say, I don’t think this passage is advocating abortion, and I think the Bible clearly teaches the personhood of the unborn.
At this point, I can’t tell if you’re interested in discussion (or just pulling random texts from a book you don’t seem to believe in an effort to say “Gotcha!”), but assuming you are, I’ll point you to a post I wrote a while back which provides a few Scriptural examples of the personhood of the unborn.
http://lukedockery.blogspot.com/2008/11/abortion-part-2-what-is-it.html
Neffs! I just got that song out of my head yesterday! And now it’s back!
I got into a glorious flamewar several years back with some people over the interpretation of a passage in Exodus (I think it was Ex…too lazy to look it up right now) that establishes a payment penalty for causing a woman to miscarry. Mind you, this is a similar punishment to accidentally killing someone’s ox. I argued that this showed that there is not only no Biblical support for the pro-life position, but that there is Biblical support for the pro-choice position, since there’s an implicit acknowledgment in that law that a fetus is not a human being.
This caused a bit of an uproar, and it turns out the NIV translation doesn’t support this interpretation (the NIV, btw, has a tendency to translate its way out of things that are inconvenient to American fundamentalist theology). Fools tried to take it to the Hebrew. I called the bluff, and took it to the motherf***ing Akkadian. The result? A two page comment by me which used original research into the code of Hammurabi to show that the miscarriage translation was the accurate one.
That was on GKB’s blog, back in the day. I’d link to it, but in a moment of carelessness, he lost the archives. I’ll never forgive him for that shit.
Hey LukeD, sorry if you were offended. I was just having some fun.
I read your article, and it does articulate a few arguments. However, most of them seem to be linguistic arguments, which are extremely vague and weak. The “same word in this context as that one” argument is hardly even an argument at all. It is certainly on a much lower level than a reasoned literary, historical, or philosophical critique.
But before we chase all those standard arguments, I am really very curious to hear you elaborate on the passage in the original article. So far, you have said “needless to say, I don’t think this passage is advocating abortion,” but I really am wildly curious to hear what you think it does say.
The reason why this passage is the first one you have to confront is because if I am reading this right, then the directness of this passage coupled with the evangelical belief that Yahweh actually gave these verbal instructions, then there is no way that that same God is pro-life today. No possible way. This passage trumps any subtle implication in the words that the various authors used throughout the rest of the Bible.
But what I do think it supports is that (whispering) the Bible was written by men. For men. To shore up the rules as they benefited . . well you know the rest.
Becca: shawtie got low low low low low.
Also, Luke. You’re young so I’m not going to be rough on you. You don’t have a uterus. Any opinion you may have about the A word is completely academic. Before you argue the pros and cons of it in any forum, you need to say that to yourself five times.
I’ve always found it interesting that when there are opposing views on an issue, it’s the Good Christian Thing to take the most conservative view. Musical instruments, dancing, sexuality, abortion. If Christ came to free us from the clutches of the Old Law, why have we just made more rules for ourselves that weren’t included in the Old Law?
I’ve heard the whole “better safe than sorry!” idea, but I can’t help but believe that with so much of the Bible open for interpretation, God won’t condemn people for believing differently than what’s it’s original intention was.
Also, Luke, I don’t know how close of a relative Jared is but he is a nutbar. Don’t cosign any car loans with him.
David,
In your original post you stated that you weren’t trying to raise the whole abortion debate, and since my one comment seemed in danger of doing that already, I thought I’d email you directly (to the address listed on the “Contact Us” page) rather than continue this discussion via the comment forum where it would undoubtedly get derailed.
Neffs,
I appreciate you not being rough on me, but I disagree with the implications of your comment.
I don’t own a slave, and never have, but I’m still capable of understanding the issue of slavery and having an opinion on it. I don’t own stocks, never over-extended myself on a mortgage I couldn’t afford, or was a shady executive for a major financial firm, but I’m still capable of understanding (at least, to some degree) our current economic problems and having an opinion of them.
Granted, abortion is a unique issue in that an unborn infant actually grows inside another person (a uterus-equipped type of person which, as you accurately pointed out, I am not one), so you have to examine the rights of two individuals instead of one.
But still, none of that is primarily relevant: IF an unborn infant is a human being, then that’s all that matters: an infant’s right to live trumps a mother’s right to choose.
Neffs,
I don’t know what interactions you’ve had with Jared, but he’s my brother, so I probably know him a little better than you do.
Rest assured that I’ll give your opinion/warning all the weight it deserves (or doesn’t?).
I know both of you not at all, I was just going by his posts at your blog, so yeah, your weight statement is spot on.
It’s interesting that you invoke the subject of slavery. Because as you say, you have to examine the rights of two individuals instead of one. My beef is that the mother’s rights are always superseded by the anti-abortion movement, and I don’t think that’s fair. Basically you are condemnning her to slavery to whatever’s in her uterus by always favoring the rights of the unborn. And until human women evolve those crazy corkscrew vaginas that the ducks have (I love the Discovery Channel), they are not in 100 percent control of what gets up there. And until then, you have to have a remedy for them to execute all on their own to correct that, or women are slaves. It’s that simple.
I don’t take the decision to terminate a pregnancy lightly at all. I know it’s one of the hardest decisions a person has to make in life, period. But I also think that if you don’t respect the fact that you will never make that decision, full stop, then you cheapen any argument you make. It’s not just you–when you look at pictures of the crowd signing the Partial Birth Abortion Ban a few years back–not a working uterus in the bunch. I don’t recall a woman in the bunch. I just happen to think that this argument would be different if the owners of working uteruses were the only ones who got a vote.
Neffs: Lets not make this a personal thing. Also, I think I agree with LukeD on the required-personal-connection-to-morally-judge issue. I think that is what it means to be an ethical person – to be able to reason morally in the abstract without having to experience every single experience to know its moral value.
LukeD: I e-mailed you back, and I don’t think there would be any problem in continuing a discussion here. I think we could keep it focused on a few things without it getting impossibly broad or overly emotional. We have pretty good commenters.
Becca: Good call by pointing out the “better safe than sorry” thing. That doesn’t hold much weight at all. The conservative side of any random issue isn’t necessarily the safe side at all. And it is always possible to think more deeply on a given issue.
JH: That passage is the Exodus passage that I listed in the original article above. I would have been curious to see your Akkadian scholarship. Ha.
*After I emailed this response to David, he responded requesting that he thought it would be beneficial for me to post it here.
David,
I. I’ll get to the Numbers 5 passage in a moment, but a couple of quick responses to your comment…
(1) I disagree with you about the supposed inherent weakness of linguistic arguments. Language choices reflect opinions and beliefs on certain topics. That’s undeniably true.
Just consider the abortion issue as it is discussed today. The vast majority of those who view the issue through Pro-Choice lenses talk about babies or infants, and then they talk about fetuses. Meanwhile, those in the Pro-Life camp are much more likely to talk about unborn babies or unborn infants. Why do the different camps talk about the issue differently? Because of the meaning of language and because they want to broadcast meaning by the words they choose to use.
I realize this is a digression from the topic at hand, but wanted to respond to what you said.
(2) As I think I said in the article, I was just using a few of many Scriptural arguments to support the Pro-Life position. More arguments are brought up in the comment section, and as I also think I mentioned, to me perhaps the strongest Scriptural argument is the Incarnation.
All that to say, even if the linguistic arguments are weak, which I don’t think they are, they are by no means the only arguments that exist.
II. Disclaimers:
(1) First, I’m going to be coming at this issue from the position that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. I know you don’t believe that, at least, not in the traditional way, but since you wrote your article from the perspective of “if you really believe what the Bible says then you’d be Pro-Choice”, my position as your standard Bible-thumper should be fine since I was your intended audience.
(2) I don’t know anything about you other than what you write. I know you consider yourself to be a Christian, but that you define that differently than most people do. I know you’re a Harding grad, which means that you’ve been exposed to a lot of Bible, and you seem to be fairly knowledgeable. All that to say, I don’t exactly know my audience, and if I write something that comes across as condescending, it’s unintentional.
III. Now, getting on to the Numbers 5 passage:
(1) I have no problem granting that the Numbers 5 passage is a somewhat weird one, but that hardly makes it unique, as there are a lot of weird passages in Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.
However, by using a difficult passage like Numbers 5 to prove a point (i.e. the Pro-Choice position is Biblical), you’re violating a basic tenet of Biblical interpretation, which is that “clear” or “easy” passages should be used to help explain “cloudy” or “difficult” ones, rather than the other way around.
Of course, even if you accept that interpretation “rule” the obvious response is, “Well, the Numbers 5 passage seems clear enough to me.” Fair enough.
(2) Except, it really isn’t very clear. I can’t be certain which translation you’re quoting from, but it seems to be from the New English Bible, which, on this passage, is markedly different from other translations.
If we’re interested in getting at an accurate translation (which we are right, since, for the sake of your argument, we believe Scripture to be the inspired Word of God), we’d do better to use a translation like the New American Standard Version, noted for it’s literal and accurate approach.
If we do that, instead of:
“…May this water that brings the curse enter your bowels and make your womb discharge, your uterus drop!”
We get:
“…This water that brings a curse shall go into your stomach, and make your abdomen swell and your thigh waste away.”
Hmm. That seems quite a bit different. Different enough that this doesn’t seem like a “clear” passage to me.
You might dislike the NASV, but I think you’ll find its rendering to be much more common (I also checked the ESV, NIV, KJV, NKJV).
(3) From your blog comment, “I really am wildly curious to hear what you think it does say.”
Taking into account the context of the chapter and the historical context, I think the passage is talking about barrenness, not abortion.
A woman who was suspected of adultery would be given this dusty water to drink, and if she were guilty, it would cause her womb to shrivel (as modern translations like the CEV or The Message say), and she would no longer be able to have offspring. Of course, in the Old Testament world, where a woman’s value was almost entirely determined by her ability to produce (male) offspring, this was a big deal.
In the context of the chapter, and in the historical context, I think this is the clear interpretation.
(4) But still, there’s one further issue, and that is, even if the ultimate intention was to produce barrenness, what if the woman were already pregnant? Then, aren’t we right back where we started?
First of all, it’s important to realize that the passage doesn’t say anything about the woman being pregnant, but still, assuming this happened quite a bit over the years, surely eventually someone would be.
It’s also true that it’s never stated that this barrenness or womb-shriveling (which surely wouldn’t be beneficial to a fetus in the womb) happens immediately. I suppose it’s theoretically possible that a pregnant woman could have her baby and then be barren forever afterward. I don’t know.
IV. But let’s assume the worst (from a Pro-Life perspective): an adulterous woman, who happens to be pregnant, drinks the dusty water and her baby is aborted. Even in that case, there are still some things to consider:
(1) This is not a human-induced abortion. Sure, a priest gives the woman some dusty water to drink, but drinking muddy water, while I’m sure it tastes bad, and might give you a stomach ache, doesn’t causes barrenness or abortions. Clearly the idea here is that whatever is happening to the womb, God is causing it (not unlike Jesus rubbing spit and mud in a blind man’s eyes…the mud didn’t help, Jesus did).
(2) So God makes the abortion happen, not a person. This doesn’t seem to help at first; it just makes God look like a jerk.
However we know from elsewhere in the Old Testament (2 Samuel 12), that as punishment for his sin with Bathsheba, God caused David’s first son with her to die. Nevertheless, we don’t take this as evidence that David and Bathsheba’s infant son wasn’t human, or that it’s okay to kill infant children today if they are illegitimate.
Now, this might be a difficult passage to come to terms with (as are many others, Ananias and Sapphira, the conquest of Canaan, the time of the Judges, etc.), but that’s a different issue.
(3) Basically, the issue of abortion today is whether or not it’s okay for a mother to decide whether or not to abort her child. Numbers 5 most likely doesn’t deal with abortion at all, and even if it does, it talks about God doing it, not people. Different issues.
Sorry for the length of the response. There were several aspects I wanted to cover, and there was actually more I wanted to write but managed to cut out.
Neffs,
Comparing an unpleasant (as I assume being pregnant is) 9-month period to slavery seems a stretch…maybe “short-term indentured servitude” would be better.
In all seriousness, in regards to this issue, I’m sure that I will never appreciate my non-uterus status as much as you would like me to, but I assure you that I’m not dismissing a woman’s rights lightly.
The Declaration of Independence talks about Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, and while I’m a big fan of all of those, I don’t think they’re all equal.
You have to HAVE life before it can be a free one, and you have to have a free life before you have the ability to really pursue happiness.
I don’t think a woman has a right to liberty that prevents life any more than I have a right to pursue happiness in such a way that prevents your liberty.
Then we have a problem. Because you can’t have both at the same time. So then you need wiser heads to figure out a remedy. And trumping the lady’s right with the baby’s every time ain’t it.
I’m sorry if you felt like I was being personal about you and your brother.
Also, I don’t want to even have lunch with your god, if he’s the kind of douche who would deliberately engineer a miscarriage because some lady stepped out on some dude. I don’t know why you’d even waste time trying to justify that. That’s the long, telltale fingers of men.
David, the gist of the argument was this: there’s a section in the Code of Hammurabi that almost perfectly mirrors the series of laws in Exodus in which 21:22 is found. Or, to be more accurate, Exodus is mirroring the Code of Hammurabi, since the latter precedes the former by eight centuries by the most conservative possible calculations.
However, in the CoH, in contrast to Exodus, the passage is completely unambiguous; it’s definitely a miscarriage they’re talking about. This makes it extremely likely that it’s also a miscarriage in Exodus 21:22.
The bulk of my original comment on GKB’s site involved lining up the two texts side by side in order to show just how very similar they were. You’d really have to be obtuse to look at all of it and not see that that section of Exodus was cribbed.
Neffs,
(1) If you believe an unborn infant is a living human, but still don’t believe that necessitates its life being protected, then you’re right, we have a problem.
I believe the right to life is more important than the liberty to choose what to do with your body (as important as liberty is), and you obviously don’t. We’ll stop there.
(2) I think it’s probably more effective to respond to arguments than to just label someone as a “nutbar,” but it’s a lot easier to do the latter, and I’ve certainly done it before.
I appreciate the apology though.
(3) I don’t know what you believe about God, but…
I was conceding what I considered to be the extremest hypothetical point for the sake of the argument.
I don’t think that’s the situation to which this passage is referring, and I’m the type who believes that a future seeing God could prevent a pregnancy in such a case so that it would never be an issue.
Having said that, there are certainly issues in the Bible (including, but not limited to, ones I mentioned in passing in the really long post) which give me trouble, but because I believe Scripture to be the inspired Word of God, and because I believe quaint notions about how His ways are higher than my ways, I’m prepared to take some things on faith.
Basically, I trust an all-knowing and all-loving God to do what’s best.
The alternative is to reject the inconvenient parts of Scripture and to instead define what God is like based on what I THINK He should be like. That would be convenient, but misguided. Reality isn’t determined by what I want it to be.
All that being said, I certainly don’t think God is a douche, and I think He’d love to have lunch with you, so to speak (really, that’s what the whole Jesus thing was about).
I think this discussion would be best served by focusing on the Numbers 5 passage, although there are certainly a myriad of other related issues. Many of those are overly divisive and emotional already.
I do want to discuss the linguistic aspect that you raised earlier, LukeD, but that may have to wait for another day.
Back to Numbers 5.
You would only be best served by a literal translation if you understood the idioms and expressions of the ancient near east. Since that is unlikely, you are better served by reading a translation that helps with that a bit. Then you get the picture of a “miscarrying womb” (some version of this phrase appears in many translations). At that point, it doesn’t matter if the womb is currently occupied or not. If it is, then this magic ritual would cause an abortion, but if not, then it would spontaneously abort upon fertilization anyway.
If this is true and the Bible really does relay the words of God, then he set up a system for he and his priests to perform abortions. Doesn’t that strike you as odd, even for a moment? Doesn’t that make you re-evaluate your presuppositions about God’s view on abortion?
You think that this is somehow okay because it is God doing it and not some human chemical or procedure, but that seems to be going about it the wrong way. The only reason you think that is because you have already concluded that God is anti-abortion before you have heard what he supposedly says about it. (I realize there is a fundamental and perhaps insurmountable difference between us in how we approach the Bible. I will address this more at the bottom.)
You say not to “use a difficult passage like Numbers 5 to prove a point,” but you miss at least two things. First, this is not a difficult passage. Second, I am not really trying to prove a point. It isn’t difficult to understand what the text means, unless your translators make it difficult by translating literally rather than idiomatically. It may be difficult for you to reconcile with your preconceptions, but that doesn’t discount its value. For instance, it is much easier to see the connection between this passage and abortion than with Jeremiah 1, although you would find that connection “easier” to reconcile. As for me not proving a point – it should be clear that I don’t think the Bible “proves” or solves any of our modern moral dilemmas. I think I said something like this in the original article. Instead, I am trying to disprove the widely unquestioned belief that the Bible is clearly anti-abortion because it is not.
In the end, I am really not even trying to argue that God is pro-abortion. I don’t think there is any way of knowing his position on the issue. It is one of the numerous ethical issues that is up to civilized humanity to work out a reasonable response to, given our collective conscience, our traditions, and our capacity to reason. I bring this passage and other arguments relating to the Bible primarily to disprove the widely and wrongly accepted view that the Bible is clearly anti-abortion. I grant that there are certain poetic statements that can be ripped out of context, certain phrases that can be intentionally mistranslated or misread, and certain broad theological views that can all possibly provide evidence showing that God is anti-abortion; however, it is not even close to being “clear.” In fact, it does appear that the most relevant passages seem to show striking disregard for fetal well being compared to the modern pro-life position.
So, every time I glance up at this tab in my firefox browser, I think it says, “Holy Abortions, Batman!”
Ha
David,
“You say not to “use a difficult passage like Numbers 5 to prove a point,” but you miss at least two things. First, this is not a difficult passage. Second, I am not really trying to prove a point. It isn’t difficult to understand what the text means, unless your translators make it difficult by translating literally rather than idiomatically.”
You’re not trying to prove a point? Really? In the original post you said, “Modern evangelicals can still hold and argue pro-life positions, but they need to recognize that the Bible does not support them” which seems an awful lot like a point to me, and was what prompted me to respond in the first place.
You make your non-point entirely on the basis of one version’s peculiar rendition of one passage. I don’t blame you for using the translation that is most beneficial to your point (ha, preachers do it all the time!), but I do blame you for claiming that this is a “clear” passage when several standard versions (which do make a practice of interpreting and updating idioms) apparently decided it was unclear enough that they didn’t translate it the way you want it to read, and the alternate translation suggests a different meaning (as I pointed out before).
For what it’s worth, I also read several commentaries on this passage, in case I was being blind and just making up what I thought the passage said. None of the commentaries suggested what you do. All of that to say, while you’re certainly entitled to your own interpretation of a given passage, if it’s not the interpretation shared by “experts” (such as translators and commentators), then I would argue that it’s not a “clear” interpretation.
“You think that this is somehow okay because it is God doing it and not some human chemical or procedure, but that seems to be going about it the wrong way. THE ONLY REASON YOU THINK THAT is because you have already concluded that God is anti-abortion before you have heard what he supposedly says about it.” (emphasis mine)
Uh, no? The reason I think that is because drinking muddy water doesn’t cause barrenness, so if barrenness actually resulted, God must have been the cause behind it.
“I bring this passage and other arguments relating to the Bible primarily to disprove the widely and wrongly accepted view that the Bible is clearly anti-abortion.”
Respectfully, I disagree. I don’t think you’ve done anything to show that from a Biblical perspective, it’s okay for a woman to choose to abort her infant.
Becca,
Me too.
LukeD,
I completely and totally agree with your comments.
JH,
With regard to your comment that Exodus mirrors the Code of Hammurabi, and that someone would “really have to be obtuse to look at all of it and not see that that section of Exodus was cribbed,” what is your point?
Is it not entirely possible (and plausible), that the writer(s) of the Code of Hammurabi intended for it to be the law for one group/set/tribe/etc of individuals, while the writer(s) of Exodus intended for it to be the law for a different group of individuals? Accordingly, so what if “it’s definitely a miscarriage they’re talking about” in the Code of Hammurabi? Were the Israelites subject to the Code of Hammurabi, or to the law of Exodus?
And, along that lines, I seem to recall hearing that several nations have used another nation’s Constitution as a framework for their own, often “cribb[ing]” whole sections therefrom. Yet, even in doing so, each nation interprets the same passage(s) contained in their respective constitutions differently.
Just something to consider.
LukeD,
I stand by the statement that “Modern evangelicals can still hold and argue pro-life positions, but they need to recognize that the Bible does not support them.” Debunking an argument is easier than making one in anyone’s logic. The burden of proof is always on the person making the claim, and the presumption lies with such a claim being not true.
(that is why you can’t say: “aliens exist. prove me wrong.” You have to show evidence of aliens)
I don’t think there IS a point to be made as far as the “biblical” position on abortion. That is why I wrote this article – to show that the issue is not nearly as clear as most evangelicals believe. In fact, the evidence seems to be weighted on the other side, if anything.
There is another, much bigger problem with the very basis of your reasoning.
There is no way that ancient cultures had great respect for the unborn. They didn’t even have (what I would consider to be) a moral view of human rights for post-birth humans. They treated women and children as chattel, had slaves, and committed mass genocide. Ancient Hebrews were no different. If you think that such a culture would randomly assign great moral value to human fetus… I don’t know what to tell you.
You might assume that anything you read in the Bible is essentially a quote from an almighty God, which would make it useful for determining morality. In fact, the Bible is a compilation of edited texts written and altered by countless individuals reflecting countless different cultural and ethical outlooks. Taken together, it is a fascinating document that provides incredible insight into the religion and culture of some of our biggest religious and cultural ancestors. But the books in the Bible reflect the cultures they were born out of, not the ultimate truth about God or morality, directly.
David,
You crack me up.
First, you write a post that essentially says, “If you believe in what the Bible says, then you wouldn’t claim that it supports the Pro-Life position, because I interpret this particular passage to actually support the Pro-Choice position.”
Then when I respond to show that your interpretation is (by the standards of virtually all mainline translations as well as the opinions of commentators) an aberrant one, you respond by switching arguments and basically saying, “Well, you shouldn’t believe everything the Bible says anyway, because it’s just a reflection of culture and not the ultimate truth about God or morality.”
So you write the post assuming (for argument’s sake) the inspiration of Scripture, and then when the discussion turns in a way you don’t like, you begin to argue against it.
Brilliant.
I think I’ll step away at this point. I didn’t sign on to argue the inspiration of Scripture, and since that’s the direction to which you’ve turned this discussion, I’ll call it a day.
So LukeD accuses David of changing the point of the discussion when the run of play (allegedly) goes against him, and yet when someone tries to take the conversation in a direction that makes him uncomfortable (the rather obvious errant nature of his beloved scripture and the foolishness of dogmatic literalism) he withdraws from the fray entirely. Hmm. The intellectual cowardice of some people is really perplexing.
If we’re keeping count, he was also a little condescending to me.
Buying into free will theology, God will not force anyone to do anything, it’s our choice. Am I to believe that God would not allow a woman a choice in this matter? If you believe in a higher authority who offers a life of free will, how can you say the Almighty would force a woman to keep a child against her will?
LukeD, the point of the discussion never changed; it’s just that it is a multifaceted issue. It isn’t as easy to resolve as you and others like you have been thinking for years, even IF the Bible is the literal message from God. That has been my main point all along and everything else has been related.
Kolby,
I believe in the inspiration of Scripture; you and David don’t. That’s fine, and I’m not threatened by that, or by discussing it. However, that simply wasn’t the discussion we were having, period.
You accuse me of “intellectual cowardice”; fine. However, if at the same time you don’t acknowledge the frustration of having a discussion with someone who completely changes arguments midstream, then I’ll call “intellectual dishonesty.”
Neffs,
Rereading my post, I can see how it could’ve come across as condescending (especially the last paragraph). That wasn’t at all my intention, and I’m sorry. It was actually supposed to be something more akin to “jovial” but that doesn’t always come across in written form.
Tuesday,
I can’t and don’t say that. I guess people like me don’t want God to take away our free will in regards to abortion, they want the government to. God gives us the free will to rob banks and shoot people, but the government punishes us for doing so.
David,
We’re recovering the same ground here, but your main point (or non-point?) was all based on your (in my opinion) dubious interpretation of one passage of Scripture. Since that passage was the basis for your point, and I answered your argument on that passage, I guess I’m just rejecting your point and saying that I disagree with you. Fair enough?
With regard to your comment that Exodus mirrors the Code of Hammurabi, and that someone would “really have to be obtuse to look at all of it and not see that that section of Exodus was cribbed,” what is your point?
The point is that the passage in the CoH sheds light on how an ambiguous verb in Exodus should be interpreted. Personally, I think there’s enough evidence from the context to support the miscarriage reading, even without the parallel CoH passage, but when you put the two together it becomes extremely unlikely that Exodus 21:22 is talking about anything other than a miscarriage. Not 100% certain, of course, but nothing is ever 100% certain in Biblical scholarship.
I was really referring more to your first point (the ‘we’ll stop there’ post). You basically called me a baby-killer, or inferred that I was okay with the killing of babies. That’s usually the first flaming bottle thrown through the window by your side, and no matter how much down and fleece you wrap it in, it’s still what it is.
Also I know that I’m basically being a jerk in the face of David’s gentlemanly insistence on sticking to the Biblical reference argument at hand. but I would also like to point out that the words-to-uteruses ratio in this thread is skyrocketing.
Neffs,
You explicitly stated that you don’t take abortion lightly, and I took you at your word. I also stated that I don’t take dismissing a woman’s rights lightly.
That being said, when push comes to shove, I take dismissing a woman’s rights MORE lightly than aborting a fetus, and you implied that you disagree—that a woman’s right to choose was superior to an infant’s right to life (hence all the uterus references).
I fundamentally disagree with that view, and that’s all I was trying to say. By “we’ll stop there” I meant, “we’ll stop arguing in circles since we’re disagreeing at a very basic level.” I DID NOT mean, “I’ll stop short of calling you a baby-killer but that’s certainly what I’m implying.”
Wait – LukeD – before this goes much further past my last comment, would you respond to this part of it at least:
“There is no way that ancient cultures had great respect for the unborn. They didn’t even have (what I would consider to be) a moral view of human rights for post-birth humans. They treated women and children as chattel, had slaves, and committed mass genocide. Ancient Hebrews were no different. If you think that such a culture would randomly assign great moral value to human fetus… I don’t know what to tell you.”
David,
No, I don’t really disagree with that. I’d guess where we would disagree would be whether or not they would consider a human fetus to be a “person” but even so, certainly they didn’t show a lot of respect for human rights a lot of the time.
Of course at the same time, our culture (at least, as a whole) doesn’t assign great moral value to a human fetus either, but that doesn’t mean it’s the correct viewpoint.
I guess the simplified response is that just because a culture values or doesn’t value certain things doesn’t mean that’s what God values, and part of the whole process of God revealing Himself to humanity in various stages involved the updating and refinement of moral values (e.g. Jesus takes moral teachings a step further than the Law and the Prophets, etc.).
This term “person” is meaningless in this context, Luke. We aren’t interested in the linguistics as much as the ethics. Personhood is only a valuable concept insomuch as we apply it to what is morally permissible. As just a word, it means nothing.
So if you concede that they were sadly immoral in their treatment of human beings in general, no matter what they called them, then why would we look that that ancient culture for guidance on this modern ethical issue at all?
You want so badly for the Bible to support your anti-abortion stance, and I will grant that there are some broad concepts that may be applied in ways that transcend the original intent – but you are simply mistaken if you think the original authors and cultures that spawned the biblical texts would have considered a fetus to be equal to an adult man in moral value.
David,
“Why would we look at that ancient culture for guidance on this modern ethical issue at all?”
Well, technically, YOU looked there, not me. Seriously though, while the Old Testament gives us examples of men and women of great moral character, I don’t think you’d find many Christians who would argue that we should look at ancient Hebrew culture as a template for moral perfection.
After all, I wouldn’t look to (King) David to see how to be a good parent, or to Solomon to find out how to choose a wife.
Really though, this comes back to the inspiration of Scripture.
If the Old Testament (or the Bible as a whole) is nothing more than a description/reflection of the values and beliefs of an ancient (and in some ways very flawed) culture, then it’s not of much benefit in the discussion of this or any other issue.
But if it’s more than that, if it’s the inspired Word of God, then it has to be treated a bit differently, because rather than just finding out what a bunch of ancients thought about things, we’d get glimpses of God’s views on things as well.
Then verses like Jeremiah 1.5 (which, by the way, I know you mentioned above, but in context, it’s part of a conversation, not a snatch of poetry) become important, because they give us an idea of when God considers “personhood” to begin.
Now, I know you don’t agree with that, which is your right, but technically, that’s not the ORIGINAL issue we were discussing. Originally, you used a passage of Scripture to “prove” that the Bible doesn’t support the Pro-Life position. We argued that at length, and are now basically discussing Biblical inspiration, but your original case is far from closed.
While I appreciate you bringing an obscure passage to light, and encouraging me and probably others to do some serious thinking, I think the conclusions you draw from that passage are off base. To sum up, I don’t think you’ve done any harm to the idea that the Bible supports the Pro-Life position.
Just out of curiosity, what does that word inspiration mean to you, exactly?
Inspiration is obviously not the biggest issue since the original article took the evangelical inspiration position at face value.
You are also still not getting that my point is to thwart the evangelical position, not to set up an opposing position.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29864032/
Here’s the number one problem with this issue. Men talk about abortions, and women have them. I would bet if you did a Lexis-Nexis search on the number of words written on the topic and divided it by male and female authors–counting blog posts–it would be something like 20 to 1.
While you guys debate this, as stated in the article above, a bunch of women terminated their pregnancies because they could not afford to have babies and saw it as the most rational, humane thing to do. I think we’ve seen enough nightmare scenarios in the news the last couple of years to understand that sometimes an abortion is the most humane thing you can do. And if you don’t understand that, LukeD, you willfully haven’t been paying attention or you’re not old enough to debate the issue.
Also, Luke, if you really cared about those unborn babies (and I’m using ‘you’ in the abstract, not picking on you directly) you would be volunteering for some organization that provided support to those women–and I’m not talking about those cockamamie church-funded centers that lie to women about how pregnant they are and take Federal money to do it–and actually try to prevent some of those. But your side is really only interested in passing laws, and to me that’s not about saving babies, that’s about limiting the choices of women because you don’t trust us to have dominion over our own bodies. Because you think we’re inferior. If you want to save babies you can do that right now. Your side never picks that.
JH:
You write: “The point is that the passage in the CoH sheds light on how an ambiguous verb in Exodus should be interpreted.”
I think that you are confusing “should” with “could.”
Well, at the end of the day, you have to translate the verb as something, and naturally you go with the option that has the most and best evidence….good lord, man.
David,
That’s a good question, since “inspiration” means different things to different people. I was just assuming the standard evangelical definition, but maybe I was assuming too much.
Here, I just took this from Wikipedia: “Evangelicals see the Bible as a truly human product whose creation was superintended by the Holy Spirit, preserving the authors’ works from error without eliminating their specific concerns, situation, or style.”
That might not perfectly describe my position, but it’s close enough.
“You are also still not getting that my point is to thwart the evangelical position, not to set up an opposing position.”
No, really, I get that.
Your point: the Bible is not Pro-life life evangelicals believe.
Your evidence: Numbers 5.
My response: Your evidence doesn’t lead to your point.
if you really cared about those unborn babies (and I’m using ‘you’ in the abstract, not picking on you directly) you would be volunteering for some organization that provided support to those women
This is the biggest problem I have with most Christian families. I think it’s incredibly selfish not to adopt or take in foster kids if you have the means to. I’m all for large families, but I wish more couple would choose to adopt rather than having their own children. With so many children already born and needing homes, we need to take care of them before we start bringing several more privileged children into the world. This is the biggest problem I have with the pro-life movement and the “pro-family” movement. Don’t vote against abortion unless you’re going to take that baby in yourself and don’t vote against gay couples adopting unless you’re going to adopt one of those children who just lost a home because of you.
Let’s go back to Numbers 5, then.
Numbers 5:22 is really the key verse. The NRSV, which I originally used, says “‘now may this water that brings the curse enter your bowels and make your womb discharge, your uterus drop!’ And the woman shall say, ‘Amen. Amen.’”
This one, if correct, is clear enough in its implications. The result of this event is going to be one or more miscarriages. If the woman is pregnant at the time, the intention is to abort that fetus. And if she ever becomes pregnant again, she will spontaneously abort (but it isn’t really spontaneous, because this is an intentional act by God/the priests/her jealous husband). You think there might be some confusion about this verse, though.
Several other translations transliterate the idiom about swelling abdomens and wasting thighs, saying something like, “‘and this water that brings a curse shall go into your stomach, and make your abdomen swell and your thigh waste away.’ And the woman shall say, ‘Amen. Amen.’” (NASB)
We call it an idiom because this is not an expression we have in modern English. I have never heard someone use an expression about swelling abdomens and wasting thighs. This is clearly the most accurate literal translation of the text, because it is found in the most literal modern translations, including the NASB and Young’s Literal Translation.
Given this evidence, your assumption is that there is confusion as to the meaning of this text and the NRSV people just pulled their idiomatic translation out of thin air. You are essentially saying that, given the literal words, you are in a better position to judge what the idiom means than the team of scholars who translated the NRSV and actually made it relevant by translating instead of transliterating. Maybe you are. Have you heard of this phrase before?
The TNIV, one of the most recent scholarly updates, says, “May this water that brings a curse enter your body so that your abdomen swells or your womb miscarries.’ Then the woman is to say, ‘Amen. So be it.’”
Again, we see the miscarrying womb. This is not just a matter of weight loss in the middle regions of the woman, and the TNIV scholars recognize this. They don’t take the pansy way out by simply translating word for word to gloss over something that is hard to swallow. The TNIV has a reputation for accuracy in meaning, and it comes from a dependable scholarly tradition.
So, while some translators have taken the easy way out by literally translating a meaningless idiom that clouds the text, two of the more dependable translations actually give insight as to what it means. There is abortion occurring in Numbers 5:11ff. That is, if we take the Bible at its word. Now if we think it is a useful text for interpreting the true position of God on the issue… this is where we come to.
God is a God who is willing to personally, through priests performing magic rituals, perform abortions on unwilling mothers. He is willing to abort innocent fetuses who have done nothing wrong, and not even give the mothers a choice in the matter. Not only that, but he is willing to put them in a state that causes them to constantly abort fetuses whenever they become pregnant. In the ancient world without birth control and without much other use for women other than sex, this may lead to the death of scores of fetuses. This is not just God allowing this to happen; his priests are actively doing it, and he is participating in it.
If God were really anti-abortion, and if the Bible really were his revelation, a passage like Numbers 5:11ff would never appear in the Bible. One or both of those conditions must be wrong then. I am fine with both being wrong, but I suspect evangelicals will cling more tightly to the revelation part than to the anti-abortion part. It is just logically impossible to cling to both, though.
Also, let’s not confuse the debate by using “pro-choice” and “pro-life,” which are modern political terms. We are dealing with abortion here, so let’s stick to the ethical labels of “anti-abortion” or “not anti-abortion.” I think that’s fair.
Becca Burley,
Your argument “[d]on’t vote against abortion unless you’re going to take that baby in yourself and don’t vote against gay couples adopting unless you’re going to adopt one of those children who just lost a home because of you” is completely ridiculous.
Should people also not vote against programs to reduce tobacco use unless they are personally willing to provide tobacco growers with funding assistance to make up for their (likely) reduced income?
No, because there are other ways to make a living. There is no replacement for raising a child. Either it gets raised by people or institutions, and society’s much worse off with the latter.
Thanks, Neffs.
Becca, I don’t mean to single you out from commenting here, so it’s really open to any of the ladies who frequent this space. Do you see a big gender divide in the approach to this topic in general or is this just one of those PTSD bugaboos of mine?
Neffs:
I’m not sure that it is any bigger of a gender gap than the gap in any other issue. Men dominate the political and social dialog in religious and political circles. So yes, I would agree with you that there is an imbalance, and we are poorer for lacking that feminine view on a lot of issues. But I am not sure that abortion stands alone among issues in that way.
What do you think about that?
Neffs and Becca Burley,
Apparently each of you have totally missed the point.
Perhaps intentionally.
Random Poster,
Apparently I have, because how I understood what you said was perfectly addressed by Neffs.
Neffs and David,
I think there definitely is some gender gap to this issue. While there are anti-abortion women and not anti-abortion men, from what I’ve seen women are more likely to be not anti-abortion than men are. I do believe, though, that not all anti-abortion men are so because they wish to keep women under control, but because they don’t realize the effect pregnancy and motherhood have on a woman’s life. In addition to the religion issue, I think ignorance (not stupidity, but they never will be able to know) and a lack of empathy are the issue when it comes to a lot of anti-abortion men.
But that’s just what I’ve gather from conversations I’ve had with others. I don’t know everyone’s reasons for believing everything and could be completely off-base here.
Random Poster,
Apparently I, too, missed the point. I think Neffs adequately responded when she pointed out that a human life and the effect that so many of these little human lives are having on society is a great deal more important than any industry.
Becca,
I agree with you. I doubt that most anti-abortion men intentionally seek to offend or completely isolate the woman’s role in the abortion issue, and it’s just a matter of ignorance. I have also noticed that anyone arguing this issue after having known someone to have an abortion personally almost always change how they address “the woman issue.” That’s also the case for how people address gay rights, equal rights, etc. It makes me wonder how much the world would change if people stopped referring to such people as statistics or disregarding them to enhance a point in debate and acknowledged them as equals.
It makes me wonder how much the world would change if people stopped referring to such people as statistics or disregarding them to enhance a point in debate and acknowledged them as equals.
UM, YES!
Maybe this is getting even more off topic (which is fine), but here is another abortion thing that baffles me…
So we’ve all heard the stats how how many abortions there are. It seems like quite a few. But in my entire life, I have never personally met a woman who admitted having an abortion. I only know of a couple who have publicly admitted to it.
Perhaps part of the problem is, like gays who stay in the closet, women who have secret abortions keep this an abstract issue rather than putting their own human face on the issue. The more gay people come out, it makes it harder for others to be anti-gay. They start to see them as actual people, and they see the issue as a human issue.
Just a thought…
That’s kind of a catch-22, though.
If I ever had an abortion, no matter how confident I was in my morality, I would be hesitant to tell people about it because so many would accuse me of sinning or being a bad person. No one wants to hear that. And few would risk hearing that just so others could see that normal and usually somewhat religious women have them. But without the average woman saying “Yes, I’ve had an abortion!” people assume it is the lower class 15-year-old girls who don’t know what else to do.
So you either have to have really gutsy women who don’t care what other people think (which most super-conservatives tend to avoid anyway) or a situation in which women could freely discuss their past abortions without feeling like lepers.
No, people assume that (name the sluttiest girl you know) is having them as a means of birth control because she’s too slutty/stupid to bother using any other kind of birth control. It’s another way women get kicked in the neck for being women.
The truth is, even women who would defend the right to have one to the death often would have trouble having one themselves. But these kinds of conversations on the topic never get to the civil point that you can talk about things like that. I know someone who’s had one. It is the hardest decision a human being can make. It’s along the lines of taking somebody off life support. I think it is almost never done lightly, and the times that you think it might be are far outweighed by the times it rips someone’s guts out.
I not only not want men having a say-so over me in this department, I don’t want other women having a say-so. I don’t want anybody but me making that decision. If Jesus himself came down and said to me ‘you shouldn’t have that abortion’ I would say ‘sir, with all due respect, you do with your body what you want and I will do the same.’ But we have a law to preserve my right to do that.
You guys also can’t forget the class problem here. Nice kids who grew up in good families can’t understand why the news that a baby is on the way could ever be bad, because it never could be for them. For pretty much anyone else, there are decisions and difficult choices to be made. It’s easy to second guess them, and entirely inappropriate. It’s like the hypothetical ‘if I were black, I would . . ‘ You’re not. You will never be able to comprehend it. Stop trying.
Actually, I thought about something else since my last comment: the number of women who have started blogging their abortions.
Earlier this year, my best friend and I read an anonymous blog about all the procedures a woman must endure before finally getting an abortion (you can read her blog here, but I must warn you kids who can’t handle naughty words that she can be a little crude sometimes). She expressed that when she was first considering the abortion she googled it, trying to find advice from other women who had done the same thing, and couldn’t find anything helpful, so she documented her own journey for women like herself who just needed to know it was a thing many women do.
I know she isn’t the only one to do this because I just googled “abortion blog” trying to find hers and I couldn’t; I had to narrow the results because there were so many.
Neffs, I can tell this is an issue that is really close to your heart, and I apologize if anything I have said has offended or upset you; I can’t empathize with you about this issue, but I can about that feeling where everyone thinks they have a right to weigh in on something they don’t and can’t understand.
That being said, I agree with you. As much as I advocate a woman’s right to choose for herself, I concluded a while ago that I did not think I was mentally fit to actually have an abortion myself, and if I did, it certainly wouldn’t be a one-day decision. Thank you for your insight on this issue.
David,
I really think we’re starting to go in circles here, but I appreciate your willingness to return to the Numbers 5 passage and your determination to convince me that your interpretation of it is correct.
When it comes to Numbers 5.22, I guess the question we face is: “Is the CLEAR interpretation of this verse the interpretation that you’ve been using?”
Obviously, my answer is no.
I really do understand all that you’re saying about idioms, but your point of view is assuming that the “standard” translations I’ve been referring to (the NASV, the ESV, the NKJV) completely ignore idioms, which isn’t true. These translations do make a practice of interpreting and updating idioms, but they didn’t do it in this case.
This suggests to me that, while the translators of these versions certainly recognized an idiom, they weren’t confident enough of its meaning to translate it the way the NRSV did.
That, coupled with the fact that none of the commentators I read interpreted the passage the way you do, make me convinced that this passage isn’t as clear as you would like it to be for the sake of your argument.
“God is a God who is willing to personally, through priests performing magic rituals, perform abortions on unwilling mothers.”
Although I clearly disagree with your interpretation of Numbers 5, even if we grant this worst case (for the anti-abortion camp) scenario, it still doesn’t tell us anything about God’s standards for human behavior.
After all, in 2 Samuel 12, God caused David and Bathsheba’s illegitimate son to die (after birth), but that doesn’t mean God is okay with us going around killing infants and toddlers.
So basically, even if Numbers 5 means what you think it does, it doesn’t tell us that God is okay with people having abortions any more that 2 Samuel 12 tells us that God is okay with people killing other people.
Of course there’s an inconsistency here—it would seem that while God establishes standards for His people, He isn’t necessarily bound to them Himself.
As the Creator and Sovereign of the universe, it’s up to God to decide what I should and should not do. I can’t presume to do the same for Him.
I’m not going to claim that that seems entirely fair, but at the same time, a God who I could completely understand and whose every action I could easily explain wouldn’t be much of a God.
I understand that you and I differ greatly in our beliefs on a fairly basic level, but if you truly believe in a sovereign God (as evangelicals do), even if your interpretation of Numbers 5 is correct, it doesn’t damage the Biblical case against humans taking the lives of unborn infants.
Just a little on the actual interpretation of Numbers 5:22 and then more on the possible implications:
I’ll be brief on the actual interpretation because I think we have both made our cases and there isn’t a whole lot more to say. It isn’t surprising to me that most commentators and translators decided to avoid the idiomatic translation because of the dicey implications. It is not uncommon for translators to take shortcuts when it is expedient for them to do so. I’m sure you are aware that the English word “Baptism” is a shortcut that short-circuits the original meaning of the word, and it was done because of outside pressures that trumped intellectual honesty. This happens quite a bit in the translation process. It is also not surprising that most of the commentators you read avoid the issue as well. Most of them are probably very anti-abortion, and they open the Bible with their anti-abortion stance firmly set. If that is how you or anyone goes about it, then you can see anti-abortion all over the Bible, and you refuse to see anything else.
That isn’t to say that nobody else realizes the implications of this passage on abortion, just that most of the people who read and study the Bible have other views.
Honestly, though. It makes total sense, given the patriarchal ancient society and the view of babies (including unborn) as the property of the biological father… that this passage would be talking about abortion. The husband would not have seen the fetus in his wife as a person deserving of moral and legal value; he would have seen it as another man’s illegitimate property that was shaming him. It makes no sense to have a passage that describes this sexist ritual related to a suspected adulteress and then to have the curse be about her stomach and legs. That makes no sense at all. You have to REALLY want this to not be about abortion to read that there, even in the literal (weak) translations.
–
Now, on to the implications of this passage. You are really letting God off the hook easy on this one. You would honestly say that this passage could maybe be describing God killing fetuses by the scores or hundreds, against the wills of the mothers, but that he would be deeply offended if a woman decided to terminate her own pregnancy? Really?
I think evangelicals let the God of the Bible off way too easily on a lot of issues. Frankly, I don’t believe God killed David’s baby and I don’t believe he told Joshua to commit genocide. I don’t believe he dictated laws that gave the death penalty for talking back to your parents and I don’t believe he was okay with Israelite soldiers sacking towns, killing the men, and taking the women and children into sexual slavery. No way. I absolutely refuse to believe that God did those things.
Our job as thinking people is to try to decipher what is truly moral and how we can best promote morality in the modern world. It isn’t nearly as easy as reading an ancient book. It takes rationality, intuition, tradition, discussion, and lots of other things. In the end, we get a picture of what God/true morality really is, and it is our job to get closer to that in every way that we can.
(I’m switching back to your view of the Bible now) Your view of God, the Bible, and morality is very confusing to me. Your view of the Bible’s God seems to be very different from the one above – you think that God is completely unrelated to morality, and that imitating some of the things that God does are evil for people to do. How do you differentiate between the things that God wants to be mimicked on and the things that he does not?
Heather, you don’t owe me any kind of apology; nobody here has offended me. I think I’m just trying as I get older to make sure that I do voice my opinion when it differs, because I feel like growing up in the cofC I learned a little too well to not do so.
because I feel like growing up in the cofC I learned a little too well to not do so.
I was just thinking about this the other day. I’ve noticed I’ve become much quieter since attending Harding, not just in classes and such, but even around people I’ve been friends with for years. Over spring break, I spend a few days with some friends at another university and I mainly sat and listened while everyone around me talked, even when I had thoughts brimming over in my head.
My first day at Harding my bible teacher asked a question, which I raised my hand and answered. He then went on for quite a while as to all the reasons I was wrong. Later in the semester, he said exactly what I had said that first day of class, and when I pointed out he had told me I was wrong for saying that earlier and asked him to clarify in case I had misunderstood something, he told me I had no right to speak out and contradict him in in class that way. I wasn’t trying to be rude, I really was just confused as to why he seemed to have changed his mind.
That’s not the only experience like that I’ve had. It’s frightening how easy it is to convince someone they’re not worth listening to.
Which professor was that, Becca?
good god someone please kill this comment thread.
It is so nice to have you back around, Kolby. Ha.
Just trying to get you to realize how much less complicated your intellectual life would be if you would drop this religion bit.
Dr. Stockstill
Becca–it’s just my dark take on things but I wonder if he would have reacted the same way to you ‘contradicting’ him if you’d been a guy. Yeah, don’t take 40 years to figure out that you’re worth listening to. ;)
Kolby–I’ve been trying to tell them it was the Book of Dudemiah all along.
Luke, you may not have seen this in whatever other thread but I said that sometimes I think people are drawn to groups like the cofC because they can offload the responsibility for believing what they as people believe anyway onto a higher power like God and abdicate their own moral responsibility for believing that way. This is a good example.
Neffs, that is a really good point.
Yeah but I had a quote and everything and I screwed it up! ;)
Neffs, Becca Burley, and Heather McIntosh (and anyone else I missed):
The argument “[d]on’t vote against abortion unless you’re going to take that baby in yourself and don’t vote against gay couples adopting unless you’re going to adopt one of those children who just lost a home because of you” is completely ridiculous because, if you are going to be intellectually honest, it is an absurd rationale for voting / not voting for something.
Essentially, the argument is: “Don’t vote against X, which affects Y, unless you are going to make Y whole for what X would have otherwise allowed Y to do.”
If you were to logically apply this same argument outside of the immediate issue being dscussed in this thread, hopefully you would realize how absurd the argument is, and the ridiculous rationales that would result for someone voting / not voting for any particular piece of legislation.*
That being said, when you sidestep the absurdity by essentially claiming “oh, the argument only applies when dealing with human life, not with income generation (or whatever else to which you could apply the argument),” it highlights how intellectual honesty may not one’s strong point when it comes to the issue of abortion.
*Note, also, that the argument fails to consider the possibility that someone may wish to vote / not vote for X because the voter, for whatever reason, believes that Y is not entitled to X. (If you were to apply the argument to other issues beside abortion, perhaps this point becomes clearer). But that is another matter altogether.
David,
(1) From the beginning, I said I thought the passage referred to barrenness, not to a curse about stomach and legs. However, there’s a difference between barrenness and abortion, especially since not all barrenness involves miscarriage at all. Even the TNIV, which you quoted, says “so that your abdomen swells or your womb miscarries…” which implies some uncertainty.
My point from the beginning has been simply been that this passage is not as clear as you have portrayed it, period.
For the record, I appreciate the Baptizo-Baptism reference (and actually thought about it in this case during all of our translation discussion), but if you really think that virtually every major translation chose to avoid the interpretation you want because they were afraid of the implications, then you’re much more cynical than I am, and I don’t really know what to tell you.
(2) One thing I mentioned a long time ago (maybe to you, maybe to Neffs…I’m not sure) is that I really don’t believe that God was basically just resigning Himself to killing scores or hundreds of unborn infants—if God is all-powerful like I believe He is, it would be nothing for him to prevent conception in this case, and it would become a total non-issue. I’m sure you think that’s skirting the issue, but if God is really in control of things, this is a no-brainer, isn’t it?
(3) “I think evangelicals let the God of the Bible off way too easily on a lot of issues. Frankly, I don’t believe God killed David’s baby and I don’t believe he told Joshua to commit genocide.”
This is not a surprising comment, and is exactly what I figured you believed.
We could spend the rest of our lives arguing back and forth over passages you don’t like (and oftentimes, I probably don’t like them either). Needless to say, I don’t just dismiss these passages as being above my ethical pay grade. In one specific case, I believe the conquest of Joshua to have been a part of God’s scheme of redemption for the world, and His revealing Himself to the surrounding nations at that time. Overall, I believe that God defines love and wisdom, and that I can, therefore, trust him to make decisions that are loving and wise whether or not they seem that way to me. (That goes back to the whole His ways are higher than my ways thing). Granted, words like “trust” imply faith, but faith is a fairly basic part of Christianity.
(4) One way or another, we seem to keep coming back to inspiration. I’m sure we could discuss this even more extensively than we have abortion via Numbers 5, but I’ll try to generalize (hopefully without oversimplifying too much).
If you are a believer, you have a couple of basic choices regarding inspiration:
(a) The Bible is divinely inspired and it reveals to us what God is like (the evangelical position).
If you’re in this group, you don’t have to wonder what God is like or what He wants from you, because that is revealed. Certainly you have to deal with some passages that are hard to understand, because you’re thousands of years removed from historical context and because the Bible isn’t always clear as to why God does the things He does. But at the same time, as you progress through the Bible, God is revealed more clearly until He is ultimately revealed through His Son (and I think this responds to a question you raised).
As a Christian, I believe the Old Testament and consider it to be useful for instruction and example, but ultimately, I follow Christ. Some of His teachings may be hard to understand as well, but there’s enough I do understand to keep me busy for life.
(b) The Bible is a valuable historical document which teaches some enduring principles and perhaps gives us glimpses of God, but not every story and teaching can be taken at face value (your view, or at least, something similar to your view).
If you’re in this group, you have the luxury of picking and choosing whatever stories and teachings you want to believe—God becomes less of what the Bible portrays Him as, and more of what you think He should be like. I would argue that the problem with this is that it basically turns God into a reflection of you (by rejecting what you don’t like, you’re left with God representing the things you value), rather than you being a reflection of Him.
If God is real, He is a certain way, and He’s that way whether our logic and reason infers that or not.
(5) For what it’s worth, I agree with Kolby, your intellectual life would be much simpler if you’d just drop this religion bit—but I hope you don’t.
Eh, I’m a little embarrassed that I somehow managed to bold the majority of my last comment.
Neffs,
I’m sure that sometimes you are right. I can’t answer for all people that might be drawn to churches of Christ, only for myself.
And in this specific case, while I believe the Bible teaches that an unborn infant is a human and should be treated accordingly, I don’t bring God/The Bible into abortion debates anyway unless I’m talking to other Christians who claim to believe what the Bible says.
Well now you’ve piqued my curiosity. What’s your non-Bible/God take on abortion?
Neffs,
To me, it all comes down to whether an unborn infant is a human life, equal in weight to you or me. If that’s the case, in my opinion, then abortion isn’t justified, regardless of a woman’s rights (we got into this earlier).
So basically, it all hinges on what rights a fetus should have.
I think a fetus is a human, as “valuable” as your or me, and if you read the post I linked to way up in my first comment and skip past all the Bible stuff, you’ll see why.
Random Poster,
I think your argument there is pretty much exactly what Neffs was speaking out against in one of her previous comments. You speak of intellectual honesty, but this is not just an intellectual debate; it involves, depending on the separate viewpoints, life and death, liberty and enslavement. You’ll notice Becca did not say that her point of view should be used for every argument concerning voting rights ever. This is not just an abstract matter that we can discuss along with the necessity to preserve our environment today for tomorrow’s children. This is happening today, right now, and what you advocate would take away the rights of not only myself, Becca, and Neffs, but every woman in the United States. Talk about lack of intellectual honesty and the fallacy of Becca’s argument all you want, but the fact of the matter is that this issue concerns us and our bodies, not you and your abstract argumentation theories.
Random Poster,
This isn’t some abstract intellectual theory. This is children being raised in abusive homes, being sold into prostitution at young ages, being sent to live in children’s homes that already have too much on their hands. We need to fix the problems we already have before creating more for ourselves.
Heather McIntosh:
Sorry, but what I “advocate” would not “take away the rights of not only [your]self, Becca, and Neffs, but every woman in the United States.”
Believing what it is that I “advocate” (and doing so without any foundation that I can discern) may make it easier for you to argue a certain point, or believe that your views are the correct and proper ones, but you couldn’t be more possibly wrong about what you think it is that I “advocate.”
Becca Burley:
“This is children being raised in abusive homes, being sold into prostitution at young ages, being sent to live in children’s homes that already have too much on their hands.”
Really?
I must be on the wrong thread, because I thought the thread was on abortions and its biblical support, of lack thereof.
How this thread morphed from abortion to child abuse is something you’ll have to explain to me….
Or not. Children who are born into situations where abortion was heavily considered are not typically going into homes where child abuse is unlikely, unless they’re being adopted. Now, that’s a gross generalization, because abuse happens in ‘good’ homes just as in bad. I think we’re all saying that the decision to terminate or not terminate a pregnancy doesn’t happen in a vacuum.