Yes, it is a child in the womb.

I understand if you don't wish to use logic, we can just use your opinion then.

I will point out one other problem with the "Child" usage. The meaning is really "pregnant" not that a woman is with child. Translations and customs in King James' time dictated a more delicate way of saying pregnant.

Example: If you will recall, Lucy was never pregnant, she was "expecting," or with "child."

NIV says "pregnant," not "with child."

 

It established that it is "forming" but not a live person. A baby is a living being only after it has been born or when it is capable of taking it's first breath.

 

That a baby/child is living while still in the womb. The existing verse we have says it is not living while in the womb.

 

I would like to ask Mr. Post-it a question, Is there any instances in which a human woman has given birth to anything other than a human being? Please site some evidence, thank you.

[ September 04, 2002, 03:50 PM: Message edited by: jerryMschneider ]

 

No, just a living person, I have never said different.

Our thread is not what it is considered after birth. It is when does the Bible consider it a "living" person, one in which taking its life would be considered murder.

 

How is it that you can laugh at God's word. I didn't say the child before birth wasn't considered alive, the Bible did. So you ROFL good time is just one more of your offbeat opinions against the Bible. Are you sure you aren't liberal? Don't you take the word of the Bible as God's own words, or is there interpretation problems?

[ September 04, 2002, 05:08 PM: Message edited by: post-it ]

 

Where? Where does the Bible say this? Where does it even imply this? Where is the historical evidence to rebut that which was presented on the other thread showing that the early Christians or OT Hebrews did not consider an unborn child alive?

You continue to assume things which have been completely refuted to the point of absurdity.

 

Don't you accept the Scriptures as absolute truth?

[ September 04, 2002, 05:20 PM: Message edited by: post-it ]

 

NO, this verse was never refuted.

Isaiah 65:20 "Never again will there be in it
an infant who lives but a few days,

Not only implied, but stated!

 

It established that it is "forming" but not a live person. A baby is a living being only after it has been born or when it is capable of taking it's first breath.</font>[/QUOTE]Where in the world does this explaination come from? The text says nothing about a "forming" human being... IT SAYS "BABE." Even more significantly, the babe "leaped in her womb." This is a personal action taken by the unborn John the Baptist. He would not take his first breath (of air) for another 6+ months yet he was very much alive. (BTW, he was breathing at the time that he "leaped." He was simply taking oxygen from his mother as opposed to the air. The respiration of an unborn is just as effective and meaningful as ours.)

 

Post-it, you know better. I know you do. It is not a matter of labeling, it is a matter of definition. The child in the womb is called a child not as a label but because that is what he or she is. By the way, since sex is determined at conception, there is no time when the child is an "it."

And you are right -- there are no other words to describe "it", a child is a child is a child. "In the womb" or "with child" has the automatic inference of a living being within that woman growing to maturity.

You are, essentially, not arguing life or non-life. You are arguing maturity. You backed up from six months to five when I pointed out that a five month old delivered child will attempt to breathe; his or her lungs are simply not mature enough to handle the gas exchange yet. There is a membrane in the way.

And that child must LOSE something -- that membrane -- to be able to breathe outside the womb. So it is not only quite complete very early on, but has protective mechanisms in place which must be lost before birth!

Biologically that child is a living being separate from the mother AT LEAST from the point of implantation if not from the point of conception (and I will happily argue for the point of conception if you like!). When the developing child dies within the mother, that is exactly what it is called medically: death. "Your baby has died" is something we have all prayed will never be said to us while we are pregnant. When a dead baby is delivered, it is called a stillborn child. There is an adjective attached to indicate death rather than life. The word "child" indicates a stage in life, not an inanimate object. It is a reference, not a label.

There is NO remote biological possibility that the developing child is not considered alive. That is biological. That is the science of it.

And God does not witness against Himself.

You have stated that the breath of life from God to Adam was a physical breath into the lungs and that therefore Adam was not alive until that point. I pointed out before that 'breath of life' is "nephesh", or soul. If this is what you define as life, then no fish, no worm, no tree, no insect is alive. None have, biblically, the breath of life.

How far are you willing to go with this? If you do not kill a fish when you smash its head against a rock, thus ceasing all the functions (whatever you call them) what was it but alive and now it is dead?

They do not have the biblical breath of life. So how could you have killed the fish you just caught?

A scorpion is not alive when it stings? And when you step on it before it stings, it is not dead then?

It never had the breath of life.

You MUST continue your logic here if you want anyone to take you seriously. Because we can't at this point.

I know, and so do most of the people on this board, that what we discover in science is many times how God has done something. He was there WAYYYY ahead of us! And we have discovered that the baby is alive and quite complete within weeks of implantation in the uterus. We have discovered that this is a life apart from the mother's and one that can die apart from the mother. And when that baby dies before birth AT ANY TIME during the pregnancy, the doctor will say to the woman, "Your baby is dead."

That's because it was, before that, alive.

[ September 04, 2002, 05:28 PM: Message edited by: Helen ]

 

It was either Jeremiah or David that said they were formed in the womb. Just applying it across the board that since the forming was not a special case. We all know that the fetus/child is formed in the womb.

Just as a home that is being formed (built) is called a home during construction, but it is not a home since a home is a place that can be lived in. The fetus can contain Life once it is formed complete enough to take in the breath of life.

[ September 04, 2002, 05:37 PM: Message edited by: post-it ]

 

Two problems here:

First, your interpretation hangs on the words "who lives but a few". These words are added by the translators for clarity and provide no proof whatsoever for life starting at birth. The most direct translation is as the KJV has it "child of days." This direct translation yields no opportunity for you to twist the words to mean something they don't.

Second, (and in an indirect defense of the MV translation) the word translated child here is different from the one used in other places. This word means a "sucking child".

This passage is simply a comparison/contrast of the very old and very young. This use does not establish universal limits no more than me saying that I am old and my son is young. I am 38 and he is 9 but that does not mean that 38 is the limit for old nor 9 the limit for young.

Your attempt to use this passages fails on both scriptural and logical grounds.

 

Helen, I never thought of that one before, you have just given another support for the hypothesis that I have put forward based on scripture.

Here is where you just made a good point. You are right fish and insects don't have the breath of life in them. They have no soul. Soul was only given to breathing animals and man. Gen and Noah's story tell us what has breath of life on earth, and fish don't. In an recent argument on the Is abortion murder thread I look briefly at the possibility of animals have a soul through this process and gave arguments why in fact they have good reason to have a soul via the breath. I couldn't back it up with another non-related argument so I really just noted it and let if fall. But you have now provided another very important piece of evidence that would go toward supporting this idea.

At the same time it function to also support that until the baby breathes, it also is not a living (with a soul) human.

 

If I am not mistaken, they also said that God knew them then. Something that is not a living soul cannot be known.

This sounds good on the surface but it is another faulty analogy for many reasons.

First, a baby grows of its on accord using the resources provided by its mother. It is alive and developing. A house will not build itself no matter how many building supplies you dump on the foundation.

Second, the house will obviously never be alive.

Third, a human being is not a shell that contains life. Humans are living systems. Take the humans out of a house and it is still the same house aging by the same rules of science. Take life from a human and aging/maturation ceases and decomposition begins.

There are others but this should suffice.

 

Yes, it helped make it very clear that life begins with the first breath.

I don't have a problem using KJV. It means the same thing. It relates and focus' on the DEATH not the life term of both the infant and the old man. It has no meaning if you remove the death aspect from it. To make this more clear, what good is it to say a old man that doesn't fill his days if it wasn't understood that he would normally die, leaving them unfilled. The same with an infant. An childs days somehow must be related to death. It only makes sense if read a child who lives for just a limited number of days. You are trying to twist meanings here. It isn't working. Tearing up scripture to support your argument gets you nowhere in this debate. Scripture must be left in tact.

[/QUOTE]

 

Psalms 104:29
Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled: thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust.

Post-it, Here is a proof text for my contention that breath means respiration and not just the use of nose and mouth to bring in air.

Notice when breath is taken away they die. Of course to this point you might say "yes, see there a fetus is not alive." But continue and it says "and return to their dust." An unborn is not returning to dust at all. It is a growing, maturing, living, human being.

 

No, the church has not always thought of abortion as murder. There were many times in history that the "seed of adultery" (aka, a pregnancy that resulted from adultery) was considered unholy. Anyone remember the bible verse "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live"? It was often used to force pregnant women accused ot witchcraft to abort. The womens' wombs were beaten until a miscarriage was induced.

We as Christians believe that abortion is murder, so we look for biblical proof to back up our claim. The bible is clear about later term pregnancy (about 6 months on), but in early pregnancy, the Bible is ambiguous. Bust since the Bible is ambiguous and does not back up our support enough, we try & twise bible verses to mean something they weren't intended to. Kuddos to us for trying to preserve the life of the unborn. Shame on us for misusing the bible in trying to do so.