Hello.
Threads that dwell on childbearing often catch my attention, even if I am not always able to respond. But here, after getting back to reading some of the later posts, let me quickly post (that is, copy-paste from long Notepad excerpts from a book I read many yrs ago on natural childbirth). I'm not an expert on this, ok, but have studied to some extent as a mother who gave birth. I'll post parts only as I consider this of utmost importance for both men and women, to understand childbirth from God's word, and also from the women who give birth themselves=).
But first a short reply to the part on 1 Tim 2.15 read from Wilmington's Bible Handbook:
2 Suggested interpretations for the statement 'would be saved thru childbearing'
1. that being homemakers, women will be saved from the corruption of society;
2. that being homemakers instead of church leaders, they will avoid being judged as teachers of heresy.
So, allow me to derail ur thread, if that's how this looks like.
Samuel Zwener, an early missionary to the Arabs, says that Arab women didn’t have painful deliveries until after their society had been adversely affected by Western culture. Even when trekking across the desert, an ‘Arab woman simply dropped behind the caravan when her labor began. After giving birth to her infant…she would walk (sometimes for many hours) to overtake the caravan, carrying her baby. The experiences of the Heb. women of the Pentateuch were surely similar to these, since they were of the same Semitic origin and culture.'
Chap. 10.
There are 5 (Heb. and Greek) words wc. when applied to a birth, mean simply 'bring forth, etc. Frequently, however, we find these mistranslated as 'travail, sorrow, pain, pangs,' and in some newer translations, even as 'writhe!'
Chap. 11
During the Reformation... not only did women have a low position in society, but twas not until this time-- the 16th and 17th centuries-- that the concept of 'pain in childbirth' was included in the 'curse of eve' teaching. Previously, it was only 'sorrow' and 'groans of toil' in childbirth...and subjection to one's husband were mentioned...
According to German scholars, the word most often associated with pain in labor, Wehen, cant be traced farther back than the middle ages.
Ch. 17 Anthrop.
Heb. woman usually crouched on her heals to give birth (1 Sam. 4.19), another woman knelt bet. her legs to receive the child out her waiting lap (Gen. 30.3).
During the Renaissance
Dr. [Ignaz] philipp semmelweis, an austrian physician, showed the direct relationship bet. the attending physician's lack of personal cleanliness and the resulting puerperal infection of the (childbearing) mother.
18 Theology
It is said that etsev in Gen.3.16, 17 refers primarily to emotions.
Etsev is also translated as ‘toil’ in Prov. 5.10, 10.22, Is. 58.3.
To be consistent, it should also be translated as ‘toil’ in 1 Chron. 4.9.
There is a verse in the NT where the AV adds ‘pain’, although it does not appear in the Greek-- Rom. 8.22 where the Gk simply says:
The whole creation groans in labor together (sunadino) until now.
It is worthy to note that ‘as a woman giving birth,’ wc appears 15x in our English translations of the OT, appears only 9x in the Septuagint.
In Isa. 42.14, rather than having the Lord say, ‘… now will I cry (paah) like a travailing (yalad) woman,’ as the AV reads, the Septuagint authors render this verse as ‘I have been as patient (kartereo) as a woman giving birth (tikto).
Translators have inserted concepts of suffering in other passages of comfort and blessing that refer to childbirth, as in Is. 54.1-4, 66.7-9, Jer. 31.8, etc.
…the really surprising thing is that it is the translators of the newer revisions of the last half century who have been the chief offenders… in their attempt to break away from the awkward literary training and use of familiar english words they have unwittingly ‘read into’ the text the concept of childbirth pain in many places where it is not in the original languages…
As a matter of fact, many of us are guilty of carelessly ‘reading into’ the text our own concepts of childbirth pain [and many other things wc arent there].
Ch. 19 Contemporary obstetric practices
Doctors too, are victims of our negative concepts of childbirth. They have suffered when their patients suffered, and if sometimes if they seem indifferent to a woman’s pain, it is because they felt they had to take a purely objective and scientific attitude toward their patients to function effectively as a physician.
RSV and ESV are very recent translations of the Bible where pain and anguish are used in Jn. 16.21-22.
But records just prior to Christ's time reveal that a birth at this time in history generally took only 2-3 hrs, so we can be certain that Christ is not speaking of 'sorrow' of a prolonged, painful delivery.
Because the concept of pain as a normal accompaniment of labor and birth is so deeply embedded in the minds of many doctors, they have dismissed as ‘irrational’ statements and evidences from women who have experienced happy childbirths.
The natural childbirth patient because she knows how to prevent pain from occurring by relaxation and proper breathing, does not suffer while the untrained orthodox patient bec. she is tense does not feel severe pain even under sedation…
Wessel, The Joy of Natural Childbirth
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