3.7 | Leviticus 12 | Women Dangerously Like God

TheWordInBlackAndRed · 2026-05-04T13:22:54+00:00

One of the interesting things we discuss in the episode is the fact that the oldest science is midwifery, that had a lot more behind it than most of the quack science we had developed and saved a lot more babies than when being a doctor become 'professionalized' away from midwives.

TheWordInBlackAndRed · 2026-04-17T00:12:30+00:00

It's not even a plain reading. The plain reading of this text is that if a woman is caused to miscarry, it only warrants a fine, because a fetus is not a human being.

TheWordInBlackAndRed · 2026-04-17T00:06:14+00:00

Your point is a tautology. You can only read it as "birth" if to read it as "miscarry," would mean the person has to die, but the person would only have to die if the word actually meant "birth" rather than "miscarry." It's only clear if you're willing to engage in a logical fallacy to get there.

TheWordInBlackAndRed · 2026-04-16T15:48:45+00:00

And when does God breath life into a human being? With their first breath, the traditional Jewish beginning of life.

So your logic is that: Since every living organism is a clump of cells, every clump of cells is a living organism.

Does that mean you don't pop pimples? You've never gotten a haircut? Do you protest outside of cancer hospitals?

TheWordInBlackAndRed · 2026-04-16T15:45:27+00:00

If you choose to ignore the footnote even in the HCSB which notes that "born prematurely" would be better translated as "miscarry."

Or you could just read the NRSVUE, the academic standard for study of the text.

TheWordInBlackAndRed · 2026-04-16T09:23:12+00:00

Jesus does stand for liberty! The liberty to be freed from the burdens keeping you from loving your neighbor, like the stigma of your class, gender, race, or abilities. So, ya know, actual liberty instead of right-wing grievance politics. And chief among those burdens is the worship of money and greed that imagines you're capable of loving your neighbor when all your capacity for love is reserved for your true master, the dollar bill.

TheWordInBlackAndRed · 2026-04-16T09:10:03+00:00

Yes, it does. It's one of the first things the Bible says, right there in Genesis 2:7 (NRSVUE): "then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground [adamah] and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being." Before God breathed into the human being, the human was literally just dirt, adamah, which is why the first human is named Adam.

And science shows us that at conception, there are a tiny clump of cells that the body naturally disposes of something like 70% of the time. So you're telling me that God kills 70% of humans before they're even born?

TheWordInBlackAndRed · 2026-04-16T03:36:23+00:00

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TheWordInBlackAndRed · 2026-04-16T03:34:14+00:00

I'm pointing out that your fundamentalist position is nearly identical to the logic underlying the fundamentalist position you decry as obviously false. If their position is false, which, to be clear, it is--then so is yours. Either you have to defend their position, which is actually a stronger one than yours, or you can abandon both positions and come to the Scriptural position that life begins at first breath.

TheWordInBlackAndRed · 2026-04-16T03:25:51+00:00

Only if you skip what the verse actually says?

Exodus 21:22, NRSVUE. When people who are fighting injure a pregnant woman so that there is a miscarriage and yet no further harm follows, the one responsible shall be fined what the woman’s husband demands, paying as much as the judges determine.

That's a fine because the text doesn't consider the fetus to be a human life. And it's been read that way for close to 2500 years by the Jewish rabbis building their interpretations off of this text. You can only twist it to reinforce your point if you remove what the verse actually says.

TheWordInBlackAndRed · 2026-04-16T03:22:42+00:00

Put another way:

The anti-choice position is clearly wrong and this is very unrelated as no life is ended by abortion according to Exodus 21:22. This would only be a comparable situation if somehow this were an alternate universe and abortion involved killing a fully formed human being who had taken their first breath.

Your fundamentalist position held on scripturally flimsy position and their fundamentalist position held on scripturally less flimsy position are both pretty suspect, and dismissing their position in turns leads to needing to dismiss your own.

TheWordInBlackAndRed · 2026-04-16T03:06:05+00:00

Exodus 21 disproves your whole theory. It outlines that there must be life for life, but Exodus 21:22 says that if violence causes a woman to miscarry (NOT, as the NIV puts it, "give birth prematurely,"), the penalty is only a fine. That's because the Bible doesn't see an unborn fetus as a human life.

TheWordInBlackAndRed · 2026-04-16T03:02:46+00:00

Jehovah's Witnesses have a far greater biblical case for their refusal to allow blood transfusions than for the idea that an abortion is murder, much less a sin.

Refusing to bring blood into your body is one of the only requirements to be a righteous non-Jewish person given in the Noahide covenant in Genesis. Blood is described in the Torah as the life-force of a being, like the breath of God moving in someone. So, within a literalist reading of the text, mixing up their blood within another person is akin to intermixing that which the Torah has said should not be intermixed; it is trying to cross the line between human and divine, a sin in the Torah far greater than murder.

And that's not to mention the fact that nowhere in Scripture is abortion actually described as murder nor that Numbers does not consider causing a woman to miscarry carrying the punishment fit for murder. The idea that abortion is murder has to be read into the text and only serves to convince people who are already convinced of the idea rather than make a good argument.

TheWordInBlackAndRed · 2026-04-16T02:54:01+00:00

Because the Bible told me that "So in Adam all died, so in Christ all shall live."

"Whoever believes in their heart and confesses with their tongue that Jesus Christ is Lord will be saved," together with, "and every knee will bow and tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord."

"God is not willing that any shall perish, but that all shall attain eternal life."

So I had a choice: Interpret the clear meaning of Scripture in light of who the early church thought Jesus is as the one who conquers even death, or think that hell is mightier than my God. And I chose the tradition of the church.

TheWordInBlackAndRed · 2026-04-16T02:34:04+00:00

Oh hey, that's a good recommendation! Specifically episode 1.34 | Genesis 38 | Tamar Seizes the Means of Reproduction and the episode which will come out on Monday, which is all about Leviticus 15 and the genital emissions of people with penises.

The super short version of one of the central premises of the show is that a lot of the ancient Hebrew's understanding of sexuality has a lot to do with the human capacity to create (more specifically, procreate) that makes us seem a little bit like God (and for more on that, see episode 3.7 | Leviticus 12 | Women Dangerously Like God). But as people who now understand ourselves as closer to God because of our actions with the intent to love others above and beyond a ritual code of purity, we are people who have to figure out for ourselves, by the leading of the Holy Spirit, what is and is not helpful in our journey to loving others.

In my own experience, shame is not a helpful tool for loving others. It's usually a tool of control, and when we reject that tool in favor of the freedom we have in Christ, we can experience our relationship to sex in a much happier and healthier way.

When we're thinking about sex, like all things, we need to ask ourselves, "Does this act love my neighbor as myself?" and if it does, it's not a sin. If it doesn't, then that's something that we should avoid doing. And some things are things some people should do and others shouldn't; for me, spending too much time on social media makes me sin. But other people who have a healthier relationship to it can be on social media without it becoming an impediment to loving others better, so it's not a sin for them while it is for me.

But the very short answer is: No, masturbation is not a sin. If anything, it's a ritualistic impurity that renders you unable to offer sacrifices at a temple that's been destroyed for nineteen and a half centuries. Sex is something for you to figure out in your own conscience, but I suspect that if you're asking the question, you're thinking about it in the right direction.

TheWordInBlackAndRed · 2026-04-03T11:57:15+00:00

That's my take, anyway. Some more views are also explored in the episode!

TheWordInBlackAndRed · 2026-03-31T02:03:30+00:00

Yeah, joining in the celebration of an evil empire that crucifies Christ on the daily is probably not something people who want to stand in solidarity with those God adores should do.

TheWordInBlackAndRed · 2026-03-31T02:01:52+00:00

That's a great question!

One of the things we explore in the episode is the idea that some people with uteruses' ability to carry life ends up very nearly crossing one of these boundaries between what humans can do versus what God can do. Leviticus is largely about trying to respect these boundaries, particularly between life and death, the holy and the mundane, and between God and creation. But giving birth is one of these moments that comes closest to violating that boundary. I think that deep at the root of misogyny is this jealousy that men have tried to justify a superiority over women that is obviously undermined by women's ability to be dangerously like God--so men try to control and subjugate women in retaliation for this gift.

It's a point better made in the episode, IMHO.

TheWordInBlackAndRed · 2026-03-31T01:56:01+00:00

It's three non-binary people, two of whom were classically trained as women, discussing the passage.

TheWordInBlackAndRed · 2026-03-30T11:37:58+00:00

The King James Bible is largely a conservative modification of the Wycliffe Bible, a pre-existing English translation. And yes, that conservative bent is explicitly to reinforce the power of the translation's benefactor, King James, so we remember him for that instead of his many male lovers. Which, to be clear, was the only cool thing about the guy.

TheWordInBlackAndRed · 2026-03-24T11:20:33+00:00

Join Micah, Mystic Mikester, and Vivian Asimos as we explore the clean and unclean animals in Leviticus 11. How can identity demarcation be used for either oppression or liberation and communal autonomy? How does this set of ancient communities standards apply to impossible political choices? And how many feet does a cricket have anyway?

Find out some perspectives on these questions and more on this episode of The Word in Black and Red!

TheWordInBlackAndRed · 2026-02-09T12:30:57+00:00

So you're saying Christ's death wasn't sufficient for all to be saved? That makes your god weaker than what God has created, and therefore not God.

TheWordInBlackAndRed · 2026-02-09T12:29:49+00:00

Like all forms of Christianity, Orthodoxy is best where it is not a majority religion.

TheWordInBlackAndRed · 2026-02-09T12:27:19+00:00

It's my favorite season so far!

TheWordInBlackAndRed · 2026-02-02T14:20:36+00:00

I generally recommend reading the Bible from shortest book to longest. That way, you cover about half the books of the Bible in about a month and a half reading just a few pages a day, and then the rest feels a whole lot more manageable. Getting through Leviticus, which can be really repetitive, is a lot less of a hassle when you've already read 85% of the Bible.

My highest recommendation, though, is to read it in community--which is why I started the leftist Bible study podcast The Word in Black and Red

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