But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart. (Luke 1:26-80)

I suppose technically, I left off the issue from verse 20, but I figured waiting until the second half to deal with it was good enough. I actually really hoped to be done with my Christmas blogging before Christmas Eve, as I hate to do last-minute Christmas anything, and I still wanted to put up something on my other blog. At least my shopping was done weeks ago.

The story picks up six months later, and another angel appears, this time to a young unmarried (but engaged) woman named Mary. He announces to her that she is going to become pregnant with the Messiah. She asks, "How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?" This tends to present a problem for a lot of people, as it seems that she is expressing doubt, but she isn't punished like Zacharias was. Interestingly, while I had always figured that this was a matter of perhaps tone of voice or some other matter that doesn't come across in writing, I think it may actually be clearer than I gave the text credit. Zacharias asks, "Kata ti gnosomai touto?" which translates to "How do I know this is true?" Mary, on the other hand, asks, "Pos estai touto?" which translates as "How will this be?" I think the difference in the verb used is indicative of the thought processes behind the questions. Zacharias is saying "How can I possibly believe this?" while Mary is saying, "Okay, but how should I be expecting this to unfold?" I do admit however that even if you understand and accept the difference between the two questions, it's not really clear why Zacharias deserves to be punished. It may be that in part, the fact that he was struck dumb was intended as a sign of some sort, which we'll see a bit of here.

The angel makes the statement nothing is impossible for God, but the SAB questions that. I actually addressed that back in Genesis, but to put it in a nutshell, while God is able to do "anything" (what this means is actually open to interpretation, which deserves more discussion) it is in character that He will never do anything that goes against His basic nature, which includes lying and subverting free will.

Mary goes to visit her cousin Elisabeth, who is of course now six months pregnant with John the Baptist. Skipping the Holy Spirit question, which I addressed in the previous post, the SAB finds it funny that the fetus that would one day be known as John the Baptist responds to the presence of the mother of Jesus. Really it is sort of funny, and my own pastor spoke about it briefly this Sunday; John's ministry as the announcer of the Christ began three months before he was even born! (Some anti-abortion Christians will use this verse to bolster their case, which might be one of the best arguments if you think about it.)

The question raised as to whether one should fear God was one I addressed at length back in Joshua, and is the last question to address here. The rest of the chapter deals with Mary singing the praises of God and the Savior she carried in her womb, and then the birth of John which involves the lifting of the curse of dumbness on Zacharias, who then also sings the praises of God.

Before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee (Exod. 21:22-23 et al.)

Aside from being busy with other things both important and non-important, I've simply been...well, sort of the opposite of looking forward to this post. The next topic to be raised by the SAB in going through Exodus is that of abortion, and there seem to be few topics as highly-charged. I'm tempted to disallow comments on this post, but instead, I'll warn any would-be posters that I'm likely to ignore their comments and/or erase them if I think they're being offensive.

Also, I'm going to focus once again on what I think the Bible actually says about abortion (which personally I don't think is much) and not my personal political views, which may or may not align with what the Bible says. For an insight into my personal views on the abortion issue, read this post in my other blog. My plan here is to address issues raised on the SAB's "What the Bible says about Abortion" page.

Exodus 21:22-23 gives me fits. People looking to the Bible to make both pro-life and pro-choice arguments love to quote this one and say that it's clearly implying what they want it to imply. First of all, the verse does not clearly state that the fetus dies. Most translations make it a bit clearer that the implication is that the baby is born prematurely. The end of verse 23 does say "life for life", implying that a person should be put to death for killing. Are we talking about killing the pregnant woman, or killing the baby? It's not at all clear, but obviously, as I have said, either case could be made. (My next post should touch on "eye for eye" and similar phrases found in this passage, which I believe to be sorely misunderstood.) Anyway, the SAB's viewpoint on this passage is not conclusive, in my opinion.

Leviticus 27 outlines the monetary value of a human being, and I think people not familiar with this passage would be surprised that God places a finite value on humans. I don't think, however that the fact that children less than a month old have no monetary value implies that they therefore have no value at all. The idea here is that of making a vow of dedication, and outlines a substitutiary monetary value. If you said you were going to donate your house to the church, but then you realized, "Hey, but where will my family live?" you could of course instead get your house appraised and give an equivalent amount of money. If you wanted to dedicate your family, you can't appraise their value, so Moses here, supposedly speaking for God, suggests some equivalent values. In my estimation, the setting of the value of newborns at zero is not to say that they are non-people, but accurately reflects their status economically. Babies aren't worth money in any practical sense, they actually cost a lot of time and money to take care of and yet don't produce anything other than dirty diapers. Furthermore, the infant mortality rate at the time this was written may have been a factor.

Numbers 3 is referring to the taking of a census for specific purposes. it's significant to note that in this chapter, we're talking about counting members of the tribe of Levi specifically. Note that two chapters earlier, God tells Moses to count the other tribes, "From twenty years old and upward..." (Num. 1:3) This is not an implication that 19-year-olds are not considered people by God, but it is very plain in that verse that God is counting only those fit for military service. In the case of the Levites, this is not a count for military service, but a count for potential workers in the Tabernacle. It's not likely that very young children would serve, of course, but they would eventually; I suspect the exclusion of newborns is once again due to the infant mortality rate. Yes, women are excluded from both counts; feel free to cry "sexism!" if you wish, but it's not that they are not considered persons, only that they are not considered soldiers or priests.

The Numbers 31 passage and some of the following Hosea passages are disturbing, no doubt. Setting aside the verse on miscarriage, which is a slightly separate issue, there is some strong language here about killing children and pregnant women. First of all, what is being talked about in these and other similar passages is a matter of warfare. Killing people in warfare is not generally considered murder but...we're talking about women and children, aren't we, and as we just covered, women and children are not soldiers. The Hosea passages might be dismissed by pointing out that God is not commanding that this should happen, but foretelling through Hosea that it's going to come to pass, but Numbers 31? Not so much. Moses is telling the soldiers of Israel to to do this, and we tend to assume that Moses is speaking on behalf of God unless we're given reason to believe otherwise. We're not really given reason as far as I can see. It seems that God wanted to wipe out the nation of Midian, and in order to do this effectively, there needed to be no men alive, nor women who might be pregnant with male babies. (Steve Wells is right in assuming some must have been pregnant, after all, that seems to be the point.) I don't know what to say about this except that it is indeed in my estimation a point in favor of those who wish to make the claim that God is not 100% against killing babies. Pretty much every claim that the SAB makes against this story is true, with the possible exception of "injustice", which I'll examine in more detail probably when I get to Numbers 25, which is related.

2 Samuel 12:14 is indeed a case of God killing a child to punish parents. I may have said it before, but there is something different about the significance of God killing a person that sets it apart from a person killing another person. If I have, I'll edit a link into this to the post, but if I have not, I really ought to cover it. Either way, I do think this is a separate issue in many respects, and don't plan to go into it in this post.

Numbers 5 is a very strange passage, and one that really ought to have a post of its own. Actually, I don't see why it's here, because I see no mention of pregnancy or miscarriage there at all. I was recently discussing this passage with a Jew who told me of an interesting view on this passage which completely changes the way to see it. I'll leave you in suspense and tell you that I've come to believe that this passage is not what it appears to be at all.

Genesis 38 is the easiest one of all to respond to. I don't know if the commentary on the passage was not there when I covered it before, or if I just forgot to address it. Anyway, I feel like I've said it a million times, but just because the Bible says that something happened, that does not imply that God condones it. Yes, Judah ordered his pregnant daughter-in-law to be burned to death. No, this sentence was not carried out. No, Judah is not a shining example of morality, as reading that chapter will evidence. No, there is no such specific law ever given by God, although admittedly there are some similar ones. (Not everything on that list properly belongs there in my estimation, out of the first four, only the first two are actual laws, the third one I address here, and the fourth was a special circumstance.)

To sum up, the only passage here that I think says anything definitive about abortion is the Exodus 21:22-23 passage, but it's unfortunately not really clear what it's saying. (Ouch! That's a tough one to admit!) It may have been clearer in the time it was written for some cultural reason, but that doesn't really explain much for us now. The Bible does have a lot to say about infanticide, which I have no doubt that the SAB has a page both for discussing the topic and pointing out apparent contradictions. I'll actually be looking forward to examining that.

And afterward shall they come out with great substance (Exod 1)

I hope everyone had a lovely holiday season, whatever holiday you may have been celebrating, or if you at least hopefully got some time off of work or school. I was really quite busy myself, although obviously not with this blog. So, it's a new year, and time to start a new book. In the absence of any feedback at this time, I guess I'll just go on to Exodus for now, and see how this goes.

The first few verses of Exodus are a very short recap of the end of Genesis, and the SAB draws our attention to the inconsistency in verse five that I addressed in a previous post. Then, as a segue into the present time (of the story), we are told that in the intervening time, the nation of Israel grew quite large. The SAB marks this as ridiculous, apparently because we're talking about a span of about 400 years and a growth from about 100 people (70 men plus some wives) to "several million" (603,505 men plus their wives and children). I'm not sure why this is ridiculous, but there is also the "Science and History" icon given next to this comment, which I suppose is to give us a clue as to what's involved. If the issue is that it ought to be scientifically possible, then I don't quite get it. If the Israelites are fairly healthy and fertile, then increasing their population to a few million in 400 years doesn't seem impossible at all. Maybe someone who thinks so might be able to explain their math to me.

If the issue is the lack of historic evidence of millions of Israelites, then that's a whole other issue, and one that I ought to address at this time. I may have said it before, but it's certainly worth repeating that in matters of history, I'm far from an expert. I'm not going to be able to address most issues relating to inconsistency between Biblical and extrabiblical history, and it's at this point in the Bible where that will hinder me more than a bit in dealing with the SAB, I'm sure. All the stuff in Genesis largely happened before there was much in the way of written history, so we might as well take the Bible's word on those matters. Now, we've come to a time when things are happening that we'd expect to be recorded outside of the Bible. One thing I have heard is that the events of the Exodus ought to have been recorded in Egypt's history, but there is little or no evidence for any of it. It may be that the Egyptians chose not to record it out of embarrassment. It may be that the records of the events were simply lost. It may be that they were recorded in a manner that is simply unrecognizable since both the Egyptians and the Israelites put their own personal spins on the events. Or of course, it may have simply not happened. (You can probably guess that I am particularly opposed to this view.)

On the one hand, lack of evidence for something does not imply evidence against it. On the other hand, with events of the sort of scale being described in this book, the lack of historical record is undoubtedly suspicious; I won't pretend that's not true. I suppose the only thing I can hope for is that readers of the Bible, whether believers or not, will keep an open and analytical mind on the matters presented therein.

(I remember some time ago there was some excitement that some chariot wheels were discovered at the bottom of the Red Sea. A number of people latched on to the story and cited it as proof positive that the events of the book of Exodus were true in their entirely. I leave it as an exercise for the reader to think up at least two ways chariot wheels could end up at the bottom of the sea without appealing to God's wrath, as well as figuring out why, even if those wheels are from the army that chased the Israelites, it proves nothing about this book whatsoever.)

Okay, rest of the chapter... I notice the SAB has no note on a matter that's always bothered me: verse 15. Although it doesn't explicitly say so, and as such we can't say for sure that it was the case, it sure sounds like the entire nation of at least one million people has only two midwives. If so, these two women must have been awfully busy! Among the things they were busy with was lying to Pharaoh. The SAB notes that God rewards the midwives for lying to Pharaoh, calling it a contradiction. I strongly disagree. I think most people would agree, and the Bible seems to support this as well, that while lying is indeed a sin, there are times when lying is a preferable sin to the alternative. Let's see, they could lie to Pharaoh, or they could kill babies; hmmm...? Really, I think it's a no-brainer. (The SAB has a whole page on lying, and mostly because of this reason, I think I only have a problem with one of the verses cited.)