19 Then the priest shall put the woman under oath and say to her, “If no other man has had sexual relations with you and you have not gone astray and become impure while married to your husband, may this bitter water that brings a curse not harm you.
20 But if you have gone astray while married to your husband and you have made yourself impure by having sexual relations with a man other than your husband”—
21 here the priest is to put the woman under this curse—“may the LORD cause you to become a curse among your people when he makes your womb miscarry and your abdomen swell.
22 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.”
If we’re taking about the average person, I don’t think they read, interpret, or understand the bible. And I don’t think its reasonable to expect them to either.
Obviously that doesn’t apply to whoever is interpreting it for them.
The woman drinks the priestly waters with G-d’s name in it. If she is unfaithful she will die (her womb/stomach will swell and burst), if she was faithful she will be blessed (and presumably have more kids).
My personal opinion, is that the old testament requires interpretation and things can not be taken literal in all cases. For example, an “eye for an eye” is understood as monetary payment in the Talmud.
Religious Jews read a weekly portion and finish the 5 Books (Genesis to Numbers) every year.
I apologize for changing the discussion with this tangent. This is almost a separate conversation of interpretation of the Bible. I definitely appreciate all your thoughts and opinions.
I know many Religious Jews read the text weekly, I can’t speak for any other group.
One of the issues with the Bible is the translation too. Hebrew words sometimes don’t translate to other languages the best. One example is when Moses came down from the mountain. Some translations state that he came down with horns. When really the text is actually stating he came down “shining.” The Hebrew word used is “Keren” which can mean a few things including horns.
I don’t know how the text is interpreted there, and that is why I omitted it above. This is where my comment for an eye for an eye might or might not apply.
My knowledge is pretty limited. My day job is an actuary not a Rabbi. I didn’t mean to come off as if I know much, that really wasn’t my intent. I apologize. I definitely I am not the right person to answer theological questions like this.
I think the bible discussion is quite apt since it’s christian people pushing to restrict abortion in the name of thier religion, and, except for Catholics, the actual sacred text doesn’t say abortion should be illegal. I actually learned something today, I assumed there were parts of the bible that said abortion was a sin, and their aren’t.
The protestants have to claim it’s biblically supported, since that is their only source of religious authority, and their particular traditions tend to mistrust philosophy.
The roman catholics base their argument in theology and philosophy.
As i understand it, there is a long tradition in christianity of a “quickening” when the fetus becomes ensouled. Before the quickening, it is not murder to abort, although it is still a sin. From an aristotelian perspective, which was hugely influential on the western church, it is logically impossible for a fetus to have a human soul before it has a certain biological sophistication, and even god cannot do logically impossible things. So it makes no logical sense for a fertilized egg to have a person soul. Proponents of the quickening had to explain how the early, non person soul “became” a ”person” soul: did God replace the old non ”person” soul entirely, did he merge it the two together, etc.
IANA Biblical Scholar. But I think people take verses like Jeremiah 1:5 ““I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb. Before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as my prophet to the nations.””
Jeremiah 1:5 NLT
And I think people use that to suggest life begins at conception or even before.
Personally, I’m not so sure, since many “conceptions” (fertilized eggs) never develop into viable pregnancies. I think this verse has more to do with God having a plan for the prophet Jeremiah.
The apostle Paul, too, writes about God having a plan for him before he was born.
So are there a bunch of souls floating around the universe not yet born or dead before birth or what? That’s where my understanding gets fuzzy. I’m ok with some things being fuzzy. Most of the time.
And because things are fuzzy, I’ve found myself in the camp of the abortion decision being between a woman and her doctor. I just can’t know enough to decide what should happen in every situation—and I don’t believe others can either.
And I think that’s what makes this so hard. It comes down to beliefs.
I’ve never found it convincing, because it comes from a tradition of an all knowing God. God even points out how he knew David before david was even in his mothers womb, ie before conception. David certainly was not an embodied person before conception, so i don’t see how this tells us anything about him as a fetus either.
“After a certain stage of intrauterine development it is perfectly evident that fetal life is fully human. Although some might speculate as to when that stage is reached, there is no way of arriving at this knowledge by any known criterion; and as long as it is probable that embryonic life is human from the first moment of its existence, the purposeful termination (is immoral).”
Notice it doesn’t actually say when a fetus becomes fully human. It simply says we know it does eventually, we don’t know when, so all abortions are immoral. This is much more nuanced than “life begins at conception.” And it is based in metaphysics, and not on a particular biblical passage.
Since it says he knew you before you were formed in the womb, some argue that contraception should be banned as you are a “person” before fertilization.
To me it’s more of an illustration of the omniscience of God rather than a statement on specifically when life began. There are multiple biblical references suggesting life begins with first breath