"Marty Helgesen" <mnhcc@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote
>On May 14, 9:21 pm, mark <whitr...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> As opposed to the Bible''s sup****t of abortion on demand (Numbers 5:
>> 12-27)
> mark
>Have you ever read Number 5:12-27 or are you just repeating an error
>you read in other sources? A quick google showed that a lot of people
>make the same mistake. The text of the Bible is widely available on
>the web, but a lot of people don't bother checking claims like that.
>The Bible Gateway site at http://www.biblegateway.com
has a lot of
>translations in one place. Here is the passage in question as
>translated in the NIV:
> The Test for an Unfaithful Wife
> 11 Then the LORD said to Moses, 12 "Speak to the Israelites and say
>to them: 'If a man's wife goes astray and is unfaithful to him 13 by
>sleeping with another man, and this is hidden from her husband and her
>impurity is undetected (since there is no witness against her and she
>has not been caught in the act), 14 and if feelings of jealousy come
>over her husband and he suspects his wife and she is impure-or if he
>is jealous and suspects her even though she is not impure- 15 then he
>is to take his wife to the priest. He must also take an offering of a
>tenth of an ephah [c] of barley flour on her behalf. He must not pour
>oil on it or put incense on it, because it is a grain offering for
>jealousy, a reminder offering to draw attention to guilt.
> 16 " 'The priest shall bring her and have her stand before the LORD.
>17 Then he shall take some holy water in a clay jar and put some dust
>from the tabernacle floor into the water. 18 After the priest has had
>the woman stand before the LORD, he shall loosen her hair and place in
>her hands the reminder offering, the grain offering for jealousy,
>while he himself holds the bitter water that brings a curse. 19 Then
>the priest shall put the woman under oath and say to her, "If no other
>man has slept 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 defiled yourself by sleeping with a man
>other than your husband"- 21 here the priest is to put the woman under
>this curse of the oath-"may the LORD cause your people to curse and
>denounce you when he causes your thigh to waste away and your abdomen
>to swell. [d] 22 May this water that brings a curse enter your body so
>that your abdomen swells and your thigh wastes away. [e] "
> " 'Then the woman is to say, "Amen. So be it."
> 23 " 'The priest is to write these curses on a scroll and then wash
>them off into the bitter water. 24 He shall have the woman drink the
>bitter water that brings a curse, and this water will enter her and
>cause bitter suffering. 25 The priest is to take from her hands the
>grain offering for jealousy, wave it before the LORD and bring it to
>the altar. 26 The priest is then to take a handful of the grain
>offering as a memorial offering and burn it on the altar; after that,
>he is to have the woman drink the water. 27 If she has defiled herself
>and been unfaithful to her husband, then when she is made to drink the
>water that brings a curse, it will go into her and cause bitter
>suffering; her abdomen will swell and her thigh waste away, [f] and
>she will become accursed among her people. 28 If, however, the woman
>has not defiled herself and is free from impurity, she will be cleared
>of guilt and will be able to have children.
>The passage describes a form of trial by ordeal.
I think like Marty is right. I don't think this passage is about
abortion. The passage about slicing up pregnant woman for the greater
glory of god, is arguably about abortion, but this passage doesn't seem
to be.
This is instead just some sick misogynous trial thing. Men
are supposed to be allowed to expose their wives to a dangerous
substance (which causes suffering even if she's innocent), with no
evidence other than jealousy as a reason for the trial. You can barely
go a page in this book without finding ***ist (or racist) nasty stuff
like this.
Even still, Marty jumped in so quickly to explain someone else's
'official' interpretation that he missed the big picture. Looking at
this in context, this passage is saying that procedures to induce
sterility are acceptable to god.
>However, while
>ordinary trials by ordeal require the accused person to do something
>that normally would cause serious injury, such as picking up or
>walking on very hot metal, on the assumption that God or the gods
>would preserve him from harm if he were innocent,
Ew...
>this trial requires
>a wife accused of being unfaithful -- the text does not say she is
>pregnant -- to drink water that has dust in it. If nothing happens
>she is to be presumed innocent. Only if she suffers some kind of
>physical affliction after drinking the water is she to be considered
>guilty of adultery.
But she gets to suffer either way. It causes bitter suffering regardless
of her 'guilt' and it also causes abdomen swelling, thigh wasting and
sterility, if she's 'guilty'.
This is part of the meal ticket scam the priests invented. In this case
they get to eat all but a handful of the barley flour in exchange for
torturing the woman.
Karl Johanson
2 Kings 15:16 "Then Menahem smote Tiphsah, and all that were therein,
and the coasts thereof from Tirzah: because they opened not to him,
therefore he smote it; and all the women therein that were with child he
ripped up."
He was allowed to reign over Israel as a reward...
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