Posts Tagged Adam

Q. Does the Bible say that human life doesn’t begin until a baby draws its first breath, as Kermit Gosnell and others have asserted?

A. No. The Bible describes humans as living beings in the womb.

“If breath is the biblical measure for life, then anyone on a ventilator is biblically dead,” Dan Arsenault, creator of the television show Church for Skeptics, remarks to Live Action News. He continues:

Presumably the life that God breathed into Adam is not the same as Adam breathing it back, nor is there any indication that God breathes equally on every person born. Life in the womb does not require breathing. Life outside the womb does. Since when is the function of lungs the measure of life? Why not a functioning heart, or kidneys? I’m guessing that neither of those were functioning in Adam before God put life into the clay He had molded, either.

Genesis 2:7 says, “Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being” (NASB). The Hebrew word used for “breathed” is נָפַח naphach, which in Strong’s Concordance means:

a prim. root; to puff, in various applications (lit., to inflate, blow hard, scatter, kindle, expire; fig., to disesteem): – blow, breath, give up, cause to lose [life], seething, snuff.

Furthermore, the word translated as “breath” in that passage is נְשָׁמָה neshamah, among the definitions of which is “divine inspiration, intellect, soul, spirit.”

These obviously indicate that something different from natural inhaling was happening. Yahweh expired some of His very own divine nature into the first human being, and that nature has been imparted to all of Adam’s descendants in our DNA. In Psalm 139, David famously describes personhood in the womb.

Some have mistaken Exodus 21:22 for not equivocating abortion with murder. A closer look at the original wording, however, indicates that the topic in that part of the law is premature birth, not miscarriage.

And when men fight, and they strike a pregnant woman, and her child goes forth, and there is no injury, surely he shall be fined. As much as the husband of the woman shall put on him, even he shall give through the judges. But if injury occurs, you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, branding for branding, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. (Exodus 21:22-25, literal translation)

The keyword there is יָצָא yatsa, “to bring or go out.”

But if there is any remaining doubt concerning where Scripture stands on the personhood and beginning of human life, the first chapter of Luke removes it. Elizabeth, six months pregnant with John the Baptist, felt him leap within her womb in response to the voice of Mary, who had just conceived Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit.

Note: This article is an expansion upon an article Amanda Read wrote for Live Action News on September 29th, 2015, titled, “Gosnell believes the Bible excuses his infanticide.”

By AMANDA READ

“The man said, ‘This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” ~Genesis 2:23, when Adam first met Eve.

Dr. Hugh Ross once pointed out that in the literal Hebrew translation, the first recorded words of the first man on Earth were, “At long last! Bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh,” as if he had been waiting forever, weary from sorting through and naming a host of animals, when he laid eyes on the first woman.

I took a look at the Hebrew words used in Genesis 2 in an interlinear Bible, where the literal translation is said to be “This now at last,” and the depth of the words used here is apparent. פּעם, Pa’am (#6470 in Strong’s Concordance, in the aforementioned passage it has ה at its beginning) has to do with a “beat” or “tap,” indicating time and movement, and the word pa’amah (#6471) which is also rooted in it means “‘now’ (this) or ‘time'”. Another word sharing this root is pa’amon (#6472), which means “a bell (as struck),” perhaps indicating an alarm.

Ultimately, it’s rather fascinating that a man who was essentially perfect and living in a perfect world with a perfect relationship with God still felt lonely until he was given a bride, isn’t it?

This origin of and reason behind the institution of marriage has symbolic implications for the relationship between Christ and the Church. While the enemy succeeded in separating mankind from the LORD through the Fall, he ironically provided a way for Christ and humanity to become even closer than they were before. Jesus Christ sought out His bride by becoming incarnate, both fully God and fully Man at the same time. Because of this, God and the Church are united as one, never to be separated:

“So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the Church, because we are members of His body. FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND SHALL BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH. This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.” ~Ephesians 5:28-32.