Numbers 5:27
The New American Standard Bible
translates this:
“her thigh will [b collapse] shrivel”
Psalm 39:13
Amplified Bible
“For You
formed my innermost parts;
You knit me [together]
in my mother’s womb.“
In WORLD Magazine and WORLD Digital, Leah Hickman [Twitter @leahmhickman] writes (WNG Post Date: March 24, 2021)
“Translation abuse” https://world.wng.org/2021/03/translation_abuse
“Some abortion advocates point to a passage in the New International Version as Biblical justification for abortion. But the NIV’s speculative translation clouds rather than clarifies”. See this footnote at bottom of article, or here: 1
I ask: How many “abortion advocates” try to understand biblical context and original text meaning, much less are “experts” in Bible interpretation? Maybe… 0%. We must always research “the full counsel of God’s Word”.
“the full counsel of God’s Word (Acts 17:11)”
– Source: Discernment When Interpreting
11 Now these people
were more noble-minded
than those in Thessalonica,
[a]for they received the word
with [b]great eagerness,
examining the Scriptures daily
to see
whether these things were so.
– Acts 17:11
Work to stay true to God
Believing against abortion does not mean we are also against the mother. Jesus forgives worse than abortion. He saves us, all of us — “out of our sin”.
Pro-life is a loving stance toward the mother and toward the pre-born baby. We should all work to stay true to God, not always looking for loopholes to practice sex when and where and with whom we choose.
“What’s got you pulling the wrong way… away from God’s expressed way that pleases Him? Left or right – it’s all about staying true to God. It’s His Word that shows us the thinking of God.
“Have you closely examined your beliefs? Do you believe it really matters – what you believe? What matters? Does it make a difference with God, what you think? Is your belief about God really from God – or have you fallen for the tricky, deceptive words of the Serpent?” – Source: Your thinking or God’s Word?
The book of Numbers, specifically the abortionist’s favorite passage, Numbers 5:27, the one pointed to by abortion advocates, is not “an abortion verse”, and does not advocate killing “the fetus”, as they ademently refer to the unborn baby. Their argument is total hogwash, and an abuse of better translation practices. Here is a best translation (NASB):
Numbers 5:27 New American Standard Bible
27 When he has made her drink the water, then it will come about, if she has defiled herself and has been unfaithful to her husband, that the water which brings a curse will go into her [a]and cause bitterness, and her belly will swell up and her thigh will [b collapse] shrivel, and the woman will become a curse among her people.
No mention of “abortion” or “miscarriage”. And here is the worst translation ever (with regards to “abortion passages”):
Numbers 5:27 New International Version
27 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 will swell and her womb will miscarry, and she will become a curse.
The abortion advocate’s prize term in this passage is “her abdomen will swell and her womb will miscarry“. But the best translation of that portion of verse 27 is is that her “thigh will collapse”.
The 2011 NIV translation breaks with earlier NIVs as well as at least 37 other translations in making three obscure verses—Numbers 5:21, 5:22, and 5:27—suggest that God forces an adulterous woman to “miscarry.” – Translation abuse, by Leah Hickman.
Doing a simple search of how does a thigh “collapse”, modern medicine describes this as “Cataplexy and Drop Attacks”. This has nothing to do with the womb. It is the “thigh”. “There are many neurological and non-neurological causes….”
See: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/drop-attack (read article for all live links)
“Cataplexy and Drop Attacks
Drop attacks can be defined as sudden falls with or without loss of consciousness, due either to collapse of postural muscle tone or to abnormal muscle contractions in the legs. There are many neurological and nonneurological causes of symptomatic drop attacks, but most are of unknown etiology. Neurological disorders include leg weakness, sudden falls in parkinsonian syndromes including those due to freezing, transient ischemic attacks, epilepsy, myoclonus, startle reactions (hyperekplexia), paroxysmal dyskinesias, structural CNS lesions, and hydrocephalus. In some of these, there is a loss of muscle tone in the legs, and in others, there is excessive muscle stiffness with immobility, such as in hyperekplexia. Syncope and cardiovascular disease account for nonneurological causes.”
There is no “biblical abortion” 2
The Bible’s many clear pro-life verses include
Luke 1:44 and Psalms 51:5 and 139:13,
where David says of God,
“You knitted me together in my mother’s womb.”
Some abortion proponents
have tried
to turn this into special cases
—yes, God knit David and John the Baptist,
but not others.
Even if that were not such a stretch,
it runs up against
passages such as Isaiah 44:2,
addressed to everyone in Israel:
“Thus says
the Lord who made you,
who formed you from the womb.”
—Marvin Olasky
it’s all about
staying true to God.
It’s His Word that shows us
the thinking of God.
FOR MORE:
Babies do not have civil rights
It is what it is: The Bible Is God’s Word To Us
“What’s got you pulling the wrong way… away from God’s expressed way that pleases Him? Left or right – it’s all about staying true to God. It’s His Word that shows us the thinking of God.
“Have you closely examined your beliefs? Do you believe it really matters – what you believe? What matters? Does it make a difference with God, what you think? Is your belief about God really from God – or have you fallen for the tricky, deceptive words of the Serpent?”
Does it matter what you believe?
Accepting Jesus – Plus Some Other
Footnotes
-
—WORLD has updated this story from its original posting to correct the description of Vern Poythress’ role on the ESV Oversight Committee.
Pro-abortion bible verses?
Those who profess faith in Christ while supporting abortion have rightly been on the defensive for almost 2,000 years—but as Leah Hickman shows, abortion advocates are weaponizing the New International Version’s translation of one mysterious Old Testament passage.
The 2011 NIV translation breaks with earlier NIVs as well as at least 37 other translations in making three obscure verses—Numbers 5:21, 5:22, and 5:27—suggest that God forces an adulterous woman to “miscarry.” Most of those 37 are like the 2015 New American Standard Bible’s translation: “her abdomen will swell and her thigh will waste away.” Nothing about miscarriage or abortion.
The NIV has a history of fashionable translation. As Daniel Vaca writes in his scholarly Evangelicals Incorporated, in 1997 WORLD exposed “the Stealth Bible,” a previously unpublicized NIV retranslation that bowed to feminist pressure. Under pressure, translators backed off. The NIV’s reputation took a hit and the version lost “market share,” but the NIV is still the best-selling English translation.
The only other translation WORLD found that inserts the word “miscarry” is the relatively little-used Common English Bible, also published in 2011. Four of the five denominations responsible for the CEB—the Episcopal Church, the United Church of Christ, the Presbyterian Church USA, and the United Methodist Church—were abortion proponents. The fifth, Disciples of Christ, wanted abortion to be legal but rare.
The Bible’s many clear pro-life verses include Luke 1:44 and Psalms 51:5 and 139:13, where David says of God, “You knitted me together in my mother’s womb.” Some abortion proponents have tried to turn this into special cases—yes, God knit David and John the Baptist, but not others. Even if that were not such a stretch, it runs up against passages such as Isaiah 44:2, addressed to everyone in Israel: “Thus says the Lord who made you, who formed you from the womb.” —Marvin Olasky.
An honest translation of Numbers 5:27 does not even come close to giving us an argument for biblical abortion. There is no “biblical abortion”. Abortion is anathema throughout God’s Word.“It’s not as if the editors of the NIV are trying to be manipulative. They honestly think that this is a euphemism,” he said, referring to the description of a falling thigh in the original Hebrew. But that translation is based purely on postulation, he said: Other Biblical passages that describe a miscarriage use more direct expressions to make the meaning obvious. The particular Hebrew phrase that appears here doesn’t appear anywhere else in the Bible, leaving little guidance for interpretation.
Either way, “it’s not really parallel to someone using modern abortifacients,” Poythress said. The water’s effect is supernatural, Poythress argues, because it varies depending on whether the woman is guilty or innocent, not on whether she is pregnant.
“Another factor is this special role that God has here: that He Himself is doing a supernatural judgment,” Poythress added: “That doesn’t authorize human beings in general to bring a judgment on other people. … What Christians could say is we believe in protecting the life of the unborn child, but God has a right to take life whenever He wants, and of course He does.”
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