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You really can’t use the bible against christians, unfortunately. With the millions of translations it went through, it is damn near illegible.
This passage is probably one of the worst, too.
They will just respond with “tHaTS NOt wHaT iT MeANs”, and you can’t really argue with that because it’s so poorly written.
Meh, the Jews have done plenty of analysis. It's their text after all. They've established personhood status is achieved at birth. Abortion while not promoted, isn't considered 'illegal' IIRC.
Of course you can. Just respond to them "who are you to make claims what god meant". Because if it's word of god, it's word of god and not up to you to interpret it whatever you like or pick and chose in what you believe. But most importantly, Bible says woman is not to lecture a man, but she is to remain silent and obedient. That sort of kills half of the arguments right there.
The problem when you bash millions of people is that your claims against the group becomes untrue very quickly. The Christians in my neck of the woods are generally supportive of women who want to get abortions. Maybe you believe that caveat is automatically implied, but I didn't catch that from my reading of your comment.
I'm not saying there aren't too many who oppose abortion on religious grounds, but I think the bigger problem in society right now is people who have generalized opinions about people due to some (usually intrinsic) group they belong to.
Please consider my reply in context of the post, it is not a standalone piece. It’s clear who “christians” refers to in this context.
I'm going to stand my ground on the matter of broad generalizations being counter productive and often tribalistic in nature.
But your point is taken.
I'm not disagreeing with you on that, only with the suggestion that my comment (or this post, for that matter) are a generalization towards all christians.
The post clearly only applies to those who would use the bible as a source in their arguments, not to those who are reasonable and see it for what it is.
My comment uses "christians" within that context - it is not a standalone piece of text. I am, (IMHO clearly) referring to the same christians the post is. I'm just going to assume it's a misunderstanding, because I find the suggestion of me generalising while the comment is within context to be quite disingenuous.
The problem when you bash millions of people is that your claims against the group becomes untrue very quickly. The Christians in my neck of the woods are generally supportive of women who want to get abortions.
That's true.
Even in Italy, house of the Vatican, home of the Pope, with 60% of Italians being Catholic Christians, abortion is perfectly legal since 1978 and no one even thinks about making it illegal.
Even scholarly attempt to analyze the "support abortion" claim fails to do so: https://academic.oup.com/cb/article/29/1/11/7103199
Edit: religion dumb
That article is kind of weak and is clearly written by someone seeking a conclusion from the outset. They're trying to claim that numbers was mistranslated and actually means that if a wife had an affair, you should rush to your priest and they will make a cup of dirty water, force her to drink it and make her pray. What is the purpose of this weird task? Clearly to give her a stomach ache and make her feel bad. The story as a whole makes no sense in that context and completely pointless.
You can't claim something is mistranslated if the alternative translation makes no sense and the main translation does. In this case, I think the author really wants to dodge the correct interpretation of the passage.
it's also wildly unsourced, as if this person is a primary source for speaking ancient hebrew
For those that won't read but want context.
- The author is a medical professional and researcher, and also speaker for The Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics (rationale arguments for Christianity)
- Commentor's "even" statement above speculates the author is biased against, this is not true.
- As with anything, bias can not be ruled out with the above
The meme is referencing:
If she has made herself impure and been unfaithful to her husband, this will be the result: When she is made to drink the water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering, it will enter her, her abdomen (bitnah, בטנה) will swell (root tsabah, צבה) and her womb (yerekah, ירכה) will miscarry (root naphal, נפל), and she will become a curse. (Numbers 5:27, NIV)
When he has made her drink the water, then, if she has defiled herself and has been unfaithful to her husband, the water that brings the curse shall enter into her and cause bitter pain, and her womb (bitnah, בטנה) shall discharge (root tsabah, צבה), her uterus (yerekah, ירכה) drop (root naphal, נפל), and the woman shall become an execration among her people. (Numbers 5:27, NRSV)
The authors argument is that NIT mistranslates, and this is not a drug for miscarriage (uterus, miscarry), but a laxative (bowels).
The argument seems sound, however as admitted, nothing can be determined for sure.
I have not looked at any counterpoints, this is just my interpretation of the study.
he's a medical professional, but his argument relies entirely on his own linguistic aptitude?
You really can’t use the bible against christians
There are a few reasons for that. One, the big one to me, is inconsistency. You (collectively) claim this passage in Numbers is absolutely true, it means exactly what you say it means, and we have to defend our faith, which is impossible because you refuse to be proven wrong. But on the other hand when we point out passages that apply directly to you and show that you have to change your ways, all of a sudden it's a very old book with lots of contradictions that's been repeatedly copied with mistakes all over the place and can't possibly be reliable.
You can't have your kayak and heat it. Either it's a pile of old nonsense, in which case this Numbers passage is also a pile of old nonsense, or it's absolutely true in which case the stuff about Jesus being your God, and you have to repent, is also absolutely true.
Another is simply misunderstanding the text you're quoting. Numbers is part of the Pentateuch and doesn't apply directly to Christians. If you want to discuss the meaning of Numbers then you'll have to take it up with some religious Jews, because this is their text not ours. It's in the Bible for historical context so that we know something of Jesus' background. There is still some good stuff in the OT but it's called that - the OLD testament - for a reason, namely that it's been (sort of*) superseded by the NEW testament.
*not really, both testaments/covenants (~=contracts?) still stand, but why would you want to live under the covenant of law when you can live under the considerably better covenant of grace? It really makes no sense.