Heads Up: This rebuttal is a bit lengthy. My advice would be to print it out to read at your leisure.Ahunna, I very much agree with you that people who engage in debates, not only about abortion, do not listen to each other and one another. And even when they pretend to listen, they refuse to concede, holding on to flawed arguments. But this argument is not between them and us; it?s between you and me. I believe that within the confines of this one on one engagement, you ought to pitch your views and convictions against mine. Incidentally, through most, approximately 50% of your argument, you appeared to be debating somebody else. Another 20% dwelt on points already addressed. That leaves me about 30% of your argument to rebut.
To be more specific, you created a pro-life/pro-choice confrontation. You interjected their views and went to work addressing those views. I?m simply a seeker of bible truth. I?m neither a pro-lifer nor a pro-choicer. I?m not even people, whoever they are. I see a lot of flaws in the pro-life argument. I see as many misstatements attributed to pro-choice. And people are ignorant of the whole thing. Responding to statements I have not made or addressing points I didn?t raise is simply not to the benefit of this exercise. I would be very much appreciative of your addressing argument only made by me, not any other third party. I would not care a newt?s eye what these groups say. Talk to me.
For instance, you pulled in something you attributed to \"people\" and made it an issue here. If people use ?size, location, and development? to argue for or against abortion, then arrange a debate with them. I never made that statement and should not have to clean up after them.
You also brought in the issue of when life begins as the test of the morality, or lack thereof, of abortion. Again, judge me by my words not somebody else?s. Regarding the status of the fetus, these are my words:
?What is the status of a fetus and at what stage does it become the much-taunted person? Is it a life? Yes. And so are the roundworm, the tapeworm, or every other parasite that may find comfort and sustenance in our body. Is the fetus human? Yes again. At the least, it has the potential. Then again, so is the hair follicle, which, under favorable conditions, namely cloning, can become a human. But is the fetus a person? No. As we shall see shortly, that makes all the difference.?
?About the status of a fetus as a person, when life begins becomes irrelevant. Of relevance is when a fetus becomes a person. In all the 6,000 years of human history, a pregnant woman, regardless of the stage of her pregnancy, has never been counted as two, not at a meeting, not during a census, and definitely not in the church. If he wants to keep driving, a taxi cab driver better not charge a pregnant woman double. So, even our society, as modern and progressive as it claims, does not see the fetus as a person.?
From the above quote, it?s easy to see where I stand. The fetus is a life, and it is human, possessing what it takes to be a full human being, DNA and all. But it is not a person, and I presented why not.
But another thing that seems to be problematic here is semantics: war of words, you might say. It would be prudent to straighten things out. The words in question are
HUMAN, FETUS, CHILD, and
PERSON. Both HUMAN and CHILD have been extensively employed to heighten passion and solicit sympathy. We need to explore the words we are playing with, at least in biblical perspective.
The word, human, is not found anywhere in the bible. The infusion of this word into debates and doctrines is artificial and not biblical. Not even the word mankind is used to envelop humanity. Instead, man, as in ?man cannot live by bread alone,? or ?whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed? does more for humanity. In other words, man, commonly used for a male adult, is also used to describe the individual being male or female, and all humanity. But mankind applies to any human adult of the male persuasion.
Contrarily, the word, person, appears quite frequently when an individual, the total package, is intended. Although this has been dealt with in my previous post, I?ll do it again for good measure. For one to become a person, certain agents namely, the physical body and the breath of life must be present. These must be present jointly, but separate from and independent of another, to constitute a person or a living soul. Hence, ?
And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul? (Gen 2:7). The breath of life doesn\'t bring just life, as in living organism. Afterall, other animals and plants have life, and breathe. but with the breath of life comes the mind, which in turn carries with it, emotion, conscience, freewill, and awareness. These are the attributes of a person. Evidently, man was not a living soul, or a person, until God gave him the breath of life. The fetus does not have the breath of life. Only a child, born live and clear of the mother, has that.
In agreeing with the above statement,
The Catholic Encyclopedia declares:
?If to this be added rationalis naturae, we have a definition comprising the five notes that go to make up a person: (a) substantia-- this excludes accident; (b) completa-- it must form a complete nature; that which is a part, either actually or \"aptitudinally\" does not satisfy the definition; (c) per se subsistens--the person exists in himself and for himself; he is sui juris, the ultimate possessor of his nature and all its acts, the ultimate subject of predication of all his attributes; that which exists in another is not a person; (d) separata ab aliis--this excludes the universal, substantia secunda, which has no existence apart from the individual; (e) rationalis naturae--excludes all non-intellectual supposita.?
But pay particular attention to the third criteria, (c). Per se subsistens, especially the last sentence (underlined). This is the exact point I made in the previous post you just responded to. Below is an excerpt.
Moreover, in the Hebrew tradition, the bed of the life law, a baby is not a person until the age of one month. God never repudiated this practice. Two persons cannot occupy the same space at the same time. It?s easy to see that the woman-fetus relationship is very different from the mother-baby relationship. There should be no comparison what so ever. Until birth, both woman and fetus are inseparable. If the woman is relocated, the fetus goes. If she feeds, it feeds. If she breathes, it breathes. Let her bleed to death, the fetus dies. The fetus goes if she?s suffocated. No human can provide the fetus with life, sustenance, or protection other than the host. Contrarily, a baby can survive and live a full life without further contact with the mother, after birth. A woman and her child are counted as two; a pregnant woman counts as one.
Refer to the underlined sentence.
God doesn\'t say things just for the heck of it. He always has a purpose. But sometimes, these sayings are not easily understood. Remember the pecept upon precept, line upon line, here a little, there a little rule. When Christ and the bible talk about a new Christian, the words, born again, as in a child, always come up. He never said
conceived again. Jesus answered Nicodemus, not once, but twice, \"Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be
born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God\" (John 3:3,5). A new Christian must become a new person. One can only be a person after birth, not before. To be born again, one must do away with old things. One must be severed from old tradition and old life as signified by the cutting of the umblical chord. For a New Christian, this ritual is represented by baptism. He must be totally immersed in water signifying his life in his mother\'s womb. Then he is born again as he emerges from the water, as from the birth canal. Observe that the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus Christ only after he came out of the water. Not before or while he was in the water, but after. \"And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him:\" (Matth 3:16).
I see you discovered the many incidences of the word, Child, in the bible and spared no opportunity to rub my nose in it. That?s OK. It?s all good. We just have to figure out why, where, and how it is used. You see, bible use of CHILD is a little more complicated than it appears. It appears quite frequently and, unlike the others, appears directly in the bible. As I pointed out before: The translators of the bible lumped many words, irrespective of their differences in meaning, spelling, and usage, as one word. Child is one of them.
The original text, Hebrew for example, has different words for every stage of life. One who is yet to be conceived, a fetus, a baby, an infant, a toddler, teenager, and even adults and old men are represented by distinctly different words. Does that make a yet to be conceived life the same as life about to return to dust? I think not. This can be laid at the foot of the translators. Maybe there were no words then to facilitate a verbatim rendering of the Hebrew or Greek texts. Maybe they did not take the trouble to find the appropriate diction. Maybe they were so inspired to foster God?s scheme to hide his design from the wise of this world. Far be it from me to query the Almighty. But the fact remains: These are clearly distinct words that were lumped together as Child by the translators.
CHILD as used in Gen 19:36 is a Hebrew translation of
harah, pronounced
haw-raw, and refers to the result of pregnancy or conception, as in the beginning of life. In other words, a fetus, if you ask me. It has the same meaning as
hareh (
haw-reh) and hariy (
haw-ree).
As used in Gen
21:8, 14; 37:30; 42:22; and elsewhere, it is rendered
Yeled and pronounced,
yeh-led. It represents ?something born, i.e. a lad or offspring: - boy, child, fruit, son, young man.?
Yaldah, pronounced
yal-daw, is feminine gender referring to lass, damsel, or girl. The child of Gen 11:30,
valad means the same as
yeled Children, as in the children of Israel, found in Exod 2:23 is a rendition of
ben, pronounced
bane, represents offspring as in from the builder of the family name.
In revisiting Exodus 21:22-23, you didn?t have to shout the word child. I could hear you loud and clear. Secondly, your statement of
?Get mad at Him if you disagree!? was not necessary, given that I have not given you any reasons to believe that discussing the word of God makes me angry. Do you think it?s cool to ask me to get mad at God? :lol: :lol: :lol:
Anyway, getting back to the issue, I believe this passage was dealt with in my previous relevant post. To freshen your memory, I wrote:
Verse 22 reads, ?If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman\'s husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.? Follow the scenario closely. Men fight. A pregnant woman is hit. A miscarriage occurs. The next statement says, ?and yet no mischief follow.? If the fetus is that valuable, how come the bible does not consider the loss of the fetus a mischief? Up to this point, we have a civil case, punishable by a fine and financial restitution.
But, according to verse 23, ?And if any mischief follow (further damage obviously to the woman), then thou shalt give life for life, 24: Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, and 25: Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. It is only when the woman is wounded is it considered criminal and an equitable punishment enforced. The second part is not about the fetus. Since fetuses possess no teeth, it must be referring to the woman. Similarly, the likelihood of the fetus being burned is zero. Remember it is not our opinion that matters. We are searching for the bible truth.
Counts.
This is a two-tier admonition. The first part, which concludes with the judge?s fine, is about the fetus. The second pertains to the woman. Why would a tooth be required for a tooth if the fetus has no teeth? Are you certain you have divided the word of truth?
You also insisted that the fetus ?is a child, not a mass of tissue.? I?ll have to disagree, with all due respect. Biologically, even a grown human is a mass of tissue. Elementary Biology defines the human body as a collection of organs working together towards the same goal. Each organ, in turn, is a collection of tissues. Logic therefore allows us to consider the human body as a collection of tissues. And what?s so special about the fetus that it should not be so considered?
Besides, the instance of ?woman with child? shown above is not even absolute. Among the popular bible versions, only the King James has it like that. Most others such as the New International version, the Living Bible, and the Revised Standard Version have it as ?a pregnant woman.? Apparently, the King James translation is in error.
The bible may have mentioned CHILD numerous times, but I say it again, this is the only instance in the entire bible, Old and New testaments, where a threat to the fetus?s welfare, with emphasis on
threat, is discussed.
We all know that God?s word is true and perfect. The use of child or any other word in the bible does not necessarily make it an accurate translation of the original. It can be misleading. Therefore, it behooves us, Christians, to
?Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth? (2Tim 2:15). We have to be able to divide or separate the truth from all we read or hear.
As can be seen, part of being a bible student is striving to decipher the writings of God. The word child appears 200 times in the KJV of the English bible. The word, Children, occurs 1778 times. This figure does not include the numerous incidences of child?s, Children?s, and other forms of the word. They are not translated from the same word. They are a translation of many different Hebrew and Greek words. Bible research is heavy work. It?s also fun, especially when a truth seeker?s understanding is opened.
