Bet you didn't see this abortion verse in the Bible

Very interesting!

As a historical note I just wanted to share that this definition for the word "pharmakeia" wasn't used until very recently. Up until the 1960's it referred to someone who uses poisons. In the 1920's people changed the meaning and read into the Bible a prohibition on drugs. Then, starting slowly around the 1980's a few groups began to claim that it was referencing oral contraceptives. But from the time it was written until the 1920's it meant poison and those who use poisons. This can be found by looking at the writings of Luther, Philo (a contemporary of Paul), Josephus Flavius, and any Bible Concordance written before the 1920's.

And the statement that most drugs at the time were to induce abortions is ludicrous and shows a complete lack of knowledge about medicine in Ancient Greece and Rome. Most of what was made were either poisons (which killed anyone who took them, not just their zygote) and antidotes for those poisons. It is true that there were a few herbal mixtures discovered that were thought to induce abortions, but these were largely unsuccessful and only available in the areas the plants naturally grew in (and here is a hint- none of them were around Israel).

Clark -

Last time I checked Galatia wasn't by Israel either!

Thanks for your comment Clark. Very interesting.

Clark - Welcome back. If I recall the last time you jumped on here was to try and twist another verse to fit your killing-the-unborn-is-just-fine-with-God fantasies. If I recall, you were also the one parroting the sloppy scholarship right out of the brochures of the blind guides at the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choices. Here's my suggestion to you. If you love abortion, fine. Fight for it as you are. Just don't try to get the Bible to agree with you.

Here again, you are true to form. 1960's??? Did you miss that I referenced Soranos?

Soronos was born in Ephesus in the second half of the first century. He was educated in Alexandria, then moved to Rome to practice medicine. He is known as the most famous gynecologist of antiquity. Most believe he specialized in gynecology because he grew up in Ephesus surrounded by the worship of Artemis of the Ephesians, the goddess of fertility and childbirth. His 85 chapter book, Gynecology, which I referenced in my post was written in Koine Greek, the same language the entire New Testament was written in. Soronos only used pharmakeia to refer to abortifacient potions.

Let me spell this out clearer for you Clark. 1) Soronos lived in the geographical region of the Bible, 2) at the general period of time of the NT/Early Church era, 3) wrote in the same language and 4) solely used this word to refer to abortion. Deal with it.

And get this… Soronos influenced Hippocrates view which was "I will give no deadly medicine to anyone if asked, nor give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion." The original Hippocratic Oath clearly rejects pharmakeia (deadly medicines of demonic origin) as does the Bible which is the point of this post. Indisputable. And, ugh, this was long before the 1960's. Hippocrates lived in the 4th century.

Others reading this may not know that until about 60 years ago the Hippocratic Oath contained the line about not giving a woman a pessary to produce an abortion. Here's a little history there… In the aftermath of the horror of the Nazi medical experiments, in 1948, the World Medical Association revised the Oath to include this line… "I will retain the utmost respect for Human Life from conception." However, in 1964 Dr. Louis Lasanga at John Hopkins eliminated the references to abortion which led to the sanitized version doctors use today.

Clark, who changed what in the 1960's???

Interesting to me that ancient copies of the Oath script are in the shape of a cross.

I recommend people go to page 854 of Arndt/Gingrich's revision of Walter Bauer's 1958 edition of "A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature" with regard to this ancient word and it's uses. It says there it primarily refers to a poison, not a mind-altering drug.

Also, I highly recommend Michael Gorman's book "Abortion & the Early Church: Christian, Jewish & Pagan Attitudes in the Greco-Roman World." Gorman only sites primary sources, it's well footnoted and he blasts Clarks ideas on ancient abortion out of the water.  There is no wiggle room in the Bible on the evil of abortion.

Clark, these others you site, Philo and Josephus for example, use pharmakeia the same way the New Testament uses the word… to refer to it's evil in society as a poison commonly used to kill the unborn and as a mind-altering substance. Both are bad, forbidden.

Ted - this is what is sad to me about the fruit of people like Clark who spread falsehoods about the Bible. There are people out there like you who read it and swallow it thinking "duh, I dunno myself, but I like abortion and he wrote something that sounds smart."

Clark - I didn't say most drugs used at that time were for abortions. Read carefully please. I said the primary use of this word was for 1) poison used for abortion and 2) for mind-altering drugs. This is confirmed by THE major scholarly NT lexicon available today (Bauer) sited above.

There were many other ancient words for various types of medicine - Soronos even uses many of them - he doesn't use pharmakeia for controception for example, only for an abortifacient.

That's just silly. Does that mean those suffering from asthma shouldn't use inhalers… the also come from the pharmakeia. I think your reaching to interpret the Bible the way you would like it to read. And in the process you weaken it.

Jamie - please read carefully. Pharmakeia isn't the word for all medicines. My. Just the "deadly medicines" used by the witches of darkness to destroy the life of those who bear image of God or, those medicines that put people under the control of darkness.

Jamie - I'll say it another way… we need to be careful that we don't read modern definitions of words like pharmeceuticals (refering to all medicines) back into this ancient word. This ancient word has a very specific use and meaning to refer to deadly medicine that comes from the demonic.

There are numerous other Bible words for medicines besides this one. The Bible is okay with medicines that do good - Proverbs talks about a merry heart being like good medicine. The Bible mentions trees that have leaves good for healing and things like balms, berries, oils and wine in terms of their GOOD medicinal purposes.

But, the demonic always corrupts the good to destroy human life - that's where this ancient word pharmakeia is used.

Biblical Luke was a physician and many times he used words in this gospel and the book of Acts that reflect the healing arts.

Steve:

I have really enjoyed this posting and the add'l information you passed on in comments. Thank you so much. Very thoughtful, intelligent and timely.

RU-486 would fall into the "pharmakeia" category, I'm sure. It is truly witchcraft in chemical form; a chemical curse and - as I have said before, a chemical coat-hanger which removes all culpability from the abortion "provider" and places it smack on the mom, setting her up for even greater guilt and shame attacks; RU-486 is so very, very demonic in its origins and applications.

God Bless.

Being the Bible is open to different interpretations according to different people, any passage in the Bible is open to questions. Some words and passages, even spelling have been changed over time, including when scribes were copying the Bible. A few years ago I read an interesting book called Misquoting Jesus, which really made me question the accuracy of the Bible.

Did anyone else see My Big Fat Greek Wedding?

Whenever I read things like what Steve wrote, I'm always reminded of that movie. The reason being is that the father in the movie believes that everything is Greek. No matter what he will tell you that it's Greek. For example, The father is giving a toast at the end of the movie, he said that his last name in Greek meant oranges. Then he goes to say that the other family, which last name is Miller; Miller comes from the Greek word Milla which means apples. It's a really cute part in the movie.

What I'm trying to get at though, is that Steve, it seems to me that no matter what we are talking about it always comes back to abortion. We could be talking about how the airplane crashed into a house this morning, and Steve would mention that it's because of abortion.

Steve, not saying that it's bad, just really funny.

Mike -

The reason Steve posts things about abortion on this blog is because this blog is dedicated to the issue of abortion.

It is that simple. When was the last time he referenced a plane crash to abortion? I must have missed that post.

Mike - newsflash!!! This is a blog about abortion. If you are interested in other subjects, check out another blog. You're funny.

Joanie - There are principles of interpretation (called hermeneutics) that generally guide a persons responsible study of the Bible. Most passages just mean what they say. Others require other cross referenced passages to help us interpret them and original language word studies. The Bible is an amazing book unlike any other in it's unity.

The words of the Bible haven't changed over time, we have the Hebrew and Greek manuscripts that go all the way back to the first century. Yes, there are textual variants in some places from one manuscript to the next but they are not substantial and don't effect the any major doctrinal issue. Translations today have a far greater variety of word usages but that's why they made us study Hebrew and Greek in seminary - so we could bypass any modern confusion. The Bible has survived and thrived despite 2000 years of attempts to silence and discredit it.

If you were able to take the time and interest to read Bart's MisQuoting Jesus book, do yourself a favor and be sure to read more than one book. Some of the most ignorant people in the world are people who think they know something because they read one cheap book. Especially on such an important issues as your view of the Bible, make sure you read something like The Canon of Scripture by FF Bruce or his book The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable. These books are backed by incredible scholarship and MisQuoting Jesus will seem like the cheap half-true tabloid it is in comparison.

If you want something lighter than FF Bruce, get something like this http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-t003.html and instead of looking at Scripture with skepticism you'll soon be in awe that though it was written by humans there is no way God's hand isn't on every page.

Joanie, I too used to struggle with the Bible. The church I grew up in rarely even asked us to open the Bible-during services, or at home on our own, and there were very few actual BIBLE study's offered. The thing that finally helped me most was prayer. ASK God to give you a hunger for Him!-ask Him to open your eyes to Scripture, and He will! He CANNOT break His word to us-it is a promise of God to ask, and you will receive. Matt 7:7. The Bible IS a supernatural book, the very breath of God whispered into the hearts of the men whose hands He used to put it on parchment! I will pray for you too, that He opens your eyes to the richness of His word-Blessings

Excellent post Steve. I'm anxiously awaiting your list.

Hello,

Thanks for your blog.

This might help shed some light on things:

http://moniquemonicat.wordpress.com/2009/03/25/so-is-this-a-conspiracy/

Might have been hard to find for most because abortion is not only a medical procedure it's VIVISECTION and most pro life folks ignore vivisection; and most antivivisectionists ignore abortion.

The key to abortion and vivisection is that they are both BLOOD SACRIFICES and that is where the sin lies.

There need not be an actual scripture stating thou shalt not kill your unborn child, but there is also no scripture saying we should not eat out of the toilet either. (sorry but this is what I tell them and it stops the argument right there) BECAUSE COMMON SENSE SPEAKS TO BOTH SO THE LORD DID NOT HAVE TO SPECIFICALLY STATE IT.

The bible is clear that John the Baptist lept in his mother's womb upon seeing Mary. That constitutes life.

The commandment THOU SHALL NOT KILL (MURDER) SHOULD BE CLEAR ENOUGH. And the proverb where God says He hates a proud look and those who shed innocent blood.

The NoChoice folks will try to say there's no scripture, but we already know that scripture: THOU SHALT NOT KILL.

But it's worse than that when you discover the connection to pharmakeia, and blood sacrifice — for both humans and animals, which is going on in medical settings.

Hope you get more scriptures too. These are all I can offer right now.

Thank you for the connection of abortion to the "abortifacient," we'll add it to our post about sorcery, abortion, vivisection, pharmakeia…

Here's a little tidbit that shows pharmakeia's ugly face of so-called medicinal drugs:

One expert in ancient Greek said the meaning of pharmakeia is closer to “healing without repentance,” repentance meaning to change direction, i.e, healing without repentance simply means trying to cure an illness without taking the responsibility of changing the behavior, habits, or environment that caused the disease in the first place. For instance, using pharmaceutical drugs to treat an illness without stopping the behavior that caused it, e.g., smoking or over indulgence in food or unhealthy food or carcinogens. Or taking blood thinning drugs to allow blood to pass through clogged arteries instead of clearing out the clogged arteries and then eating properly to avoid them getting clogged in the first place. People who do not take responsibility for their own health want a magic pill.

But just like all magic, it is nothing but an imitation, a trick, fraud: SORCERY.

…more later