I'm too much of a coward to do it...

[elfs]

So, the "Our brother is a blessing" posters that I blogged about a week or so ago have all come down, now to be replaced with photos of smiling babies and the phrase, "God knew me in the womb (Psalms 139:13-15)".

I so want to make an overlay and replace the Bible reference with Numbers 5:11-31.

Comments

[hydrolagus.livejournal.com]

A variant on that one with "God knew my soul before I was born" is on my route home, at a slight angle to a full-billboard-sized picture of the evil baby from Family Guy.

[rarkrarkrark.livejournal.com]

Why Numbers 5:11-31? (This is what you can have if you don't cheat on your husband? What am I missing here?)

[cthulu-for-pm.livejournal.com]

Probably the same thing I'm missing. I don't get it...

[(Anonymous)]

Numbers 5:11-31 is a ritual where by if the woman has been cheating
the child she is carrying will be magically aborted.

If hubby is in good with the rabbi

[(Anonymous)]

20:1 says the 'bitter water' is tincture of rue, whereupon she's likely to abort spontaneously, no matter who the father.

[rarkrarkrark.livejournal.com]

Except that it doesn't mention the woman being pregnant, that I can figure. I flipped around a few different translations and it seems to me to say the same thing in all of them: there's no mention of pregnancy, and that if the woman drinks the "bitter water" and has cheated, then she shall be made barren and her womb of the miscarrying kind (not causing an immediate miscarriage, but ensuring many future miscarriages) and that her belly would swell and her thighs would waste. The references to her swelling belly might suggest pregnancy, but thighs don't normally waste during pregnancy and none of the references to swollen bellies look to me like they are meant to describe the woman's state before she drinks the bitter water.

I quick search for what the bitter water was, exactly, suggests that nobody knows for certain though there's a ton of speculation. Bummer, because I wanted to know if it was something that would make someone sick reliably or not.

"God" also "aborts" over 1/2 of fertilized ova -- they just fail to implant. This fact fails to faze pro-lifers, because as far as they can see this is God's job, not ours. (as far as I can see, for an omnipotent guy God doesn't seem to show up very often...)

[purly.livejournal.com]

The pregnancy is implied, since she totally did it with someone else.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Not quite. Read it closely. Numbers 5:11-31 is where, if the husband thinks the wife has been cheating, he can take her to the priests who know a secret poison that will cause an abortion.

[gromm.livejournal.com]

Footnote C says "Or: body and cause you to be barren and have a miscarrying womb"

In other words, (although this is a poor translation on my part, a poor translation on some guy's part some 800 years ago, and no original source) she will be barren and have many miscarriages.

[angharads-house.livejournal.com]

oh, go ahead, do it.

there used to be billboards up in farm country here that said "abortion kills a beating heart" below a picture of a cherubic baby.

we stickered a couple of them to edit, to "cheatin' heart" and picture of Elvis. One of them lasted nearly a year. Farmer must have agreed with our sentiments, maybe.

[abostick59.livejournal.com]

Does anyone else hear an icky silent "carnally" in "God knew me in the womb"?

[srmalloy.livejournal.com]

I was thinking the same thing, given its usage as a euphemism for sex in the KJV. Of course, this brings up equally-disturbing corrolary thoughts... for example, if God knows children in the womb, then Lot's two daughters weren't actually virgins when he tossed them to the Sodomites, even though he was technically correct when he stated that they had not known men...

Although, Elf, I think the proper overlay for that shouldn't be a different biblical verse, but "...so I'm having Him arrested for child abuse."

[gromm.livejournal.com]

The Numbers quote you cite is another reason I think that the Bible is horribly outdated, largely irrelevant to today's society, and by and large full of shit.

Basically, this passage amounts to a voodoo ritual that is about as reliable a test for innocence of infidelity as a trial by fire is for innocence of witchcraft.

Moreover, if this ritual incurs divine intervention for future pregnancies, what's stopping God from divinely intervening *all* the time? Is he just not paying attention, and the ritual gets his notice?

[whatthehay.livejournal.com]

So let me see if I understand this. This ritual will either abort a baby implanted by an affair or prevent future babies from the married couple by miscarrying? Isn't a miscarrage God's way of performing an abortion? Wouldn't he be killing the son or daughter of the man who brought the wife to the ritual? Wouldn't that be punishing the husband? And what about THAT kid's right to life?

God is myth and people are full of shit.