Here it is ... abortion sanctioned in the Bible ...

[Miigwech]

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Numbers+5%3A11-31&version=NIV


The Test for an Unfaithful Wife

11 Then the Lord said to Moses, 12 “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘If a man’s wife goes astray and is unfaithful to him 13 so that another man has sexual relations with her, and this is hidden from her husband and her impurity is undetected (since there is no witness against her and she has not been caught in the act), 14 and if feelings of jealousy come over her husband and he suspects his wife and she is impure—or if he is jealous and suspects her even though she is not impure— 15 then he is to take his wife to the priest. He must also take an offering of a tenth of an ephah[a] of barley flour on her behalf. He must not pour olive oil on it or put incense on it, because it is a grain offering for jealousy, a reminder-offering to draw attention to wrongdoing.

16 “‘The priest shall bring her and have her stand before the Lord. 17 Then he shall take some holy water in a clay jar and put some dust from the tabernacle floor into the water. 18 After the priest has had the woman stand before the Lord, he shall loosen her hair and place in her hands the reminder-offering, the grain offering for jealousy, while he himself holds the bitter water that brings a curse. 19 Then the priest shall put the woman under oath and say to her, “If no other man has had sexual relations with you and you have not gone astray and become impure while married to your husband, may this bitter water that brings a curse not harm you. 20 But if you have gone astray while married to your husband and you have made yourself impure by having sexual relations with a man other than your husband”— 21 here the priest is to put the woman under this curse—“may the Lord cause you to become a curse among your people when he makes your womb miscarry and your abdomen swell. 22 May this water that brings a curse enter your body so that your abdomen swells or your womb miscarries.”

“‘Then the woman is to say, “Amen. So be it.”

23 “‘The priest is to write these curses on a scroll and then wash them off into the bitter water. 24 He shall make the woman drink the bitter water that brings a curse, and this water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering will enter her. 25 The priest is to take from her hands the grain offering for jealousy, wave it before the Lord and bring it to the altar. 26 The priest is then to take a handful of the grain offering as a memorial[c] offering and burn it on the altar; after that, he is to have the woman drink the water. 27 If she has made herself impure and been unfaithful to her husband, this will be the result: When she is made to drink the water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering, it will enter her, her abdomen will swell and her womb will miscarry, and she will become a curse. 28 If, however, the woman has not made herself impure, but is clean, she will be cleared of guilt and will be able to have children.

29 “‘This, then, is the law of jealousy when a woman goes astray and makes herself impure while married to her husband, 30 or when feelings of jealousy come over a man because he suspects his wife. The priest is to have her stand before the Lord and is to apply this entire law to her. 31 The husband will be innocent of any wrongdoing, but the woman will bear the consequences of her sin.’”

[lindysalsagal]

1. I never knew that! Ha!

[SunSeeker]

2. K & R & Bookmarked!

[LizBeth]

14. Bookmarked also. Man, the title, God promotes abortions. Lol. Right now I put up a mansplaining

tweet on AOC and her trauma, and shook out the facts of the last couple days but I think this one will be tomorrows post on my FB. It is going to gut my Southern Baptists.

[yonder]

3. Interesting. What happens to the unfaithful husband?

Nothing, I suspect. Maybe he gets another wife?

[MineralMan]

9. "Verily, I say unto you, boys will be boys."

Thus sayeth the Lord.

[Hoyt]

11. LMAO. That's about the truth in the all male version of the Bible.

[Heartstrings]

12. What he said...☝️

[LizBeth]

15. +1

[nilram]

27. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge

you know what I mean, you know what I mean

[consider_this]

4. WOw, more pure evil from the 'Good Book'

good for who?

humans have never changed and likely never will.

[42bambi]

5. Oh dear, all this time I thought God was a loving God, now we find out

that He will give a woman an abortion. Alas, we've had pro-abortion all along, all we have to do is commit a sin ... and who among us hasn't. LOL.

[MineralMan]

6. Aha! You're a thorough reader of the Bible.

Must be an atheist or something. Those verses are unfamiliar to most Christians.

[Ferrets are Cool]

20. ...

I, as an athiest, know more about the bible than most "so-called christians".

[uponit7771]

7. ***ALSO*** Exodus explains what happens when a person causes a woman to have a miscarriage (link)

... and the fact that is not eye for eye because the baby isn't sentient

https://www.biblestudytools.com/gnt/passage/?q=exodus+21:22-25;+leviticus+24:19-20;+deuteronomy+19:18-20;+matthew+5:38-41

22 "If some men are fighting and hurt a pregnant woman so that she loses her child, but she is not injured in any other way, the one who hurt her is to be fined whatever amount the woman's husband demands, subject to the approval of the judges. 23 But if the woman herself is injured, the punishment shall be life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.

[intrepidity]

25. This, to me, is the more compelling Biblical verse

No ambiguity whatsoever.

[uponit7771]

33. Yep, watch a anti choice head explode as they try to twist this to mean something else

[FM123]

8. Very interesting, I never realized that was what they meant in the book of Numbers.

I googled it and apparently it even has a name...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordeal_of_the_bitter_water

[WhiskeyGrinder]

10. Yeah, using an abortion forced by the authorities isn't a great argument imo.

[handmade34]

13. ah yes...

but our laws come from the Constitution not the Bible... yes, we can use this argument when interacting with fundamentalists but at some point the Bible has to be just an interesting book and not something that has anything to do with politics...

[BComplex]

19. We only wish!

"at some point the Bible has to be just a interesting book and not something that has anything to do with politics... "

[Mariana]

16. A trial by ordeal, with the ordeal being forced to drink an abortifacient.

I notice a distinct lack of the slightest bit of concern over the life of any innocent fetus that may be lost during this procedure.

[Mosby]

17. It reads differently in hebrew.

Scholars disagree on the meaning. The sotah ritual was unusual and the section in Naso oddly detailed.

5:22 in hebrew says:

May this water that induces the spell enter your body, causing the belly to distend and the thigh to sag.

Many scholars think "thigh" is a euphemism for the women's reproductive organs.

The sotah ritual was discontinued by the time of the second temple. No one believed it could divine the truth by then.

Eta there was nothing in the water, Jewish sages believe the ritual was more about "proving" to the husband that his suspicions were not warranted. The only reaction then was psychosomatic. Marital harmony between husband and wife was considered extremely important, even more than defiling God's name by soaking the "curse" in the bitter water, thereby erasing the name.

[Miigwech]

22. What? They even had Fox news back then, LOL

[Hermit-The-Prog]

18. Looks like "bitter water" is dirty water and it's a gamble on how dirty the floor is.

[msfiddlestix]

21. Sounds to me like Satanic Rituals

This why I'm an Atheist.

[stopbush]

23. Look at it this way: religionists claim that god designed the human body.

That means god designed the human reproductive system.

Yet fully 25% of pregnancies do not come to term, and with no action or intervention from outside human forces. It’s just the way it is.

Which makes god history’s greatest abortionist. God built abortion into the system.

[lagomorph777]

24. There's a tons of bonkers shit in the Bahbull.

[stopdiggin]

26. no one else going to point out

that this is clearly a magic spell (incantation) -- specifically the invocation of a curse? And these are people that we are taught to honor and revere? Please!

The whole thing -- in any context, but particularly this -- is just stomach turning!

[Politicalgolfer]

28. Yup, written numerous times

It is part of the instructions Moses gave over and over again regarding the role of the priests to the people.....ordered by God! Throughout first few books this and a long, long list of laws of every day life & how to offer proper sacrifices are enumerated. So it isn't just a one time shot! The bitter waters...ie, forced abortion😐

[mindfulNJ]

29. Yeesh

the Bible has some weird shit in it.

The most cherry-picked book ever written.

[PurgedVoter]

30. 3.5 liters of ground barley

So after burning a scant handful, the priests got enough flour to feed a man for about a week.
Subtract the cost of a half cup of holy water and it is a quick enough ceremony to eliminate guilt. I suppose that poison could be put in the cup if the priest had suspicions and wanted to maintain local faith in the tradition. Since two people in the community knew the truth, this is the sort of tradition that could quickly bring an undercurrent of distrust.

While this seems a bit harsh on the woman, consider what the punishment was for men. Men who had relations outside of marriage were put to death. If a man was caught and found guilty, he died. There was an exception if he married the woman/victim but if a husband did not have as easy a way out of trouble as this. Then again, this was done when you had no evidence.

[Ms. Toad]

31. Numbers is in the Old Testament -

passages from the Old Testament only count when they feel like it.

[Mosby]

32. For Christians, which is why you and others call it the "old" testament.

For Jews, there is no "new" testament.

[Ms. Toad]

34. And which religious group is it that believes abortion is a sin?

Seemed pretty clear to me that the post was directed to countering Christians' assertion that abortion is a sin. I'm not aware of any significant Jewish population making that claim - and I don't believe Jews routinely refer to their sacred text as the bible (the designation used in the OP). Not to mention that there are other sacred texts associated with other religions.

I was using the names used by group this seemed to be addressed to (evangelical Christians). It's a solid parallel to the same group's assertion that Leviticus bans homosexuality, while ignoring all of the other prohibitions in the same book (largely because in their belief system Jesus came along later and tossed out all those rules - at least the ones they find inconvenient)

[Mosby]

37. It's a small point, but it bugs a lot of Jews.

Jews do call the torah the bible though, I generally say Christian scriptures and Jewish scriptures in mixed groups.

This is how it's referenced at usa today:

It’s common in this debate to hear the Christian perspective. But what’s often left out of the conversation is how Jews, who read the Hebrew Bible – referred to in Christian circles as the Old Testament – argue that their tradition condones abortion. Sometimes, if the mother's life is at stake, it even insists on it.

“This is a big deal for us,” Ruttenberg says. “We’re very clear about a woman’s right to choose. And we’re very clear about the separation between church and state.”

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/07/24/abortion-laws-jewish-faith-teaches-life-does-not-start-conception/1808776001/

It is odd how Christians follow parts of the Torah but not others. I don't understand how that works.

[DLCWIdem]

35. There are also more verses that also don't forbid abortion

Jesus's Sermon on the Mount when he says Don't weep for me and he says there will come a time when women will run they ever had children

[BSdetect]

36. And next we had witchcraft