biblically speaking, where does life begin?

anders said:

The Bible also prohibits manslaughter (the more correct translation of the commandment), but admonishes priest and husbands to perform what's supposed to bring on an abortion on the mere suspicion that a pregnant woman might have been adulterous.

Click to expand...

Interesting. What's the reference on this?

Sunstone said:

It doesn't seem to me that there's any Biblical consensus about when life begins. Different passages seem to assume different views about it. So, perhaps it's arbitrary which passages you pick for your own view.

Click to expand...

So did I miss the argument for life beginning at birth? I certainly haven't seen anything very convincing that this is the case.

SoyLeche said:

There's one "story" in the Bible that makes me think that (physical) life begins before birth. I don't think it's by any means conclusive though.

What I am thinking of is the experience that Elisabeth had when Mary came to visit. When Mary entered - John (6 months along) reacted. That seems to indicate to me that he was "alive".

Click to expand...

Wow, good point! Not only alive but also sentient. How do we know it was 6 months?

Katzpur said:

So did I miss the argument for life beginning at birth? I certainly haven't seen anything very convincing that this is the case.

Click to expand...

I think standing_on_one_foot made a convincing argument for it (word for soul is same as breath), coupled with Bick's reference to God breathing life into Adam. In other words, Adam's body was fully formed but not yet alive until he took a breath.

These coupled with the evidence from Leviticus than an unborn foetus was considered nothing more than property of the husband....

The question was where does life begin. Not where does the existence of the soul/spirit begin.

Katzpur, I think the passages that you quote effectively argue in favor of a soul/spirit that pre-exists our bodies, but it isn't clear to me that one can conclude that God considers an unborn foetus "alive" from that.

Would you agree that before conception the soul/spirit already exists? Yet, we would not argue that it is physically "alive."

Comprehend, similarly, the passage in Jeremiah supports an argument that a soul/spirit exists before birth, but doesn't prove imo that the foetus is considered "alive," and more to the point, recognized as a person.

lilithu said:

I think standing_on_one_foot made a convincing argument for it (word for soul is same as breath), coupled with Bick's reference to God breathing life into Adam. In other words, Adam's body was fully formed but not yet alive until he took a breath.

Click to expand...

But this only brings us back to square one, rather than resolving the argument. After all, a baby has been breathing fluid for quite a while before birth.

lilithu said:

The question was where does life begin. Not where does the existence of the soul/spirit begin.

Click to expand...

Maybe the question should have been more specific then. To me, the spirit is life. I believe that as soon as the spirit was formed by God -- which was long before it entered into a physical body -- it was a living entity capable of thinking, feeling and reasoning. As to when that spirit enters into a fetus, I admit that I'm not really sure what I think.

Katzpur, I think the passages that you quote effectively argue in favor of a soul/spirit that pre-exists our bodies, but it isn't clear to me that one can conclude that God considers an unborn foetus "alive" from that.

Click to expand...

Well, that makes two of us then.

Would you agree that before conception the soul/spirit already exists? Yet, we would not argue that it is physically "alive."

Click to expand...

I'd agree that the spirit exists before conception. As I said, I also believe that it is alive. Until conception or birth or somewhere in between, I believe it exists independently of the flesh and bones tabernacle it will ultimately inhabit. Likewise, when the physical body dies, I believe that spirit simply leaves but continues to exist apart from the body.

You know, I'm actually starting to think that we're not even talking about the same thing at all.

DeepShadow said:

But this only brings us back to square one, rather than resolving the argument. After all, a baby has been breathing fluid for quite a while before birth.

Click to expand...

I don't believe that the argument can be resolved, so that's not what I'm after. I do think however that saying that the "baby" has been "breathing" fluid is a stretch. Yes, it has been respiring. But it that is not what is generally thought of as breath.

You may not find it a convincing argument (and I don't expect you to) but it seems there is a fair amount of evidence that this is how the Jewish tradition interprets "life."

lilithu said:

Wow, good point! Not only alive but also sentient. How do we know it was 6 months?

Click to expand...

Luke 1:24-26

Actually, it was in Elizabeth's 6th month of pregnancy that Mary conceived. It was probably at least a few weeks later before Mary got to Elizabeth's house.

Katzpur said:

You know, I'm actually starting to think that we're not even talking about the same thing at all.

Click to expand...

Well, when it comes to the issue of abortion, for me the key question isn't when life begins (because it depends on how you define life and that quickly turns into a semantic argument). It's when is the entity recognized as a "person." In the contexts of Mike's question, I interpreted it to mean, citing biblical scripture as the basis of one's argument, at what point does God recognize the foetus/baby as a person? At what point would it be considered "murder" to end the life?


So for me, while I agree with you that the bible is full of references that suggest a soul/spirit that pre-dates the body's physical existence, that does not answer the question at hand, for me.

I don't know what the answer is; tho I thought that Soy_Leche's passage was good for arguing that John was already aware and reactive while still inside Martha's womb. And I thought of another passage along similar lines. Supposedly when Jacob and Essau were both in Rebecca's womb, they struggled against each other. That implies sentience before birth as well.

In Rabbinical writings there is a story of the fetus knowing the "Word of God/Torah" as it is in the womb, but at birth an Angel touches the infant an it forgets.

Then Yeshua/Jesus says when he sends the "Comforter", he the (Comforter) will bring to your remembrance.

Well that is good enough for me.

If we believe the Torah, then Torah should be the law.
Life begins at conception, yet it has not breathed the breath of life, so as not to be a "living soul", so a life can not be ended that has not began, so it is not equal to murder.

On the other hand to abort a fetus that you and your wife(or vise-versa) caused to become a fetus, is without a doubt an immoral act.

My opinion; The Christian Right is almost never correct.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=2&chapter=21&verse=22&version=31&context=verse

Exodus 21:22 suggests that all that an unborn fetus is only valued as a potential economic unit of production, not as a human life as there is no violation of the "no killing" rule.