You Can Know You Have Eternal Life
#30 – God’s Standard for Mankind (14)
Medical knowledge in the Bible points to Divine Inspiration (4)
by Jim Mettenbrink

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     Circumcision was a practice in several ancient societies and is still part of the Muslim and Jewish religions.  In the Old Testament, God made a covenant with Abraham that he would be the progenitor of many nations (Genesis 17:4-5).  As a perpetual signature on this covenant, God commanded Abraham and all male descendants to be circumcised.  Several passages in the New Testament indicates that the rite of circumcision was meticulously performed from Abraham’s day through the next 2000 years.  (Note, that although circumcision predated Abraham in other societies, it was not a universal requirement, e.g. in Egypt it was required of soldiers and pagan priests.  God’s command to Abraham is the first requirement that (1) all of his male descendants were to be circumcised and it was a (2) mark of a covenant.)
     Interestingly, God commanded that circumcision be performed on a boy’s eighth day of life (in contrast to Islam’s traditional 13th year) (Gen. 17:12).  The question is "Why did God command circumcision to be performed on the eighth day and not at some other time?"
Vitamin K and prothrombin, which are essential for the clotting of blood, are provided by the mother through the umbilical cord while the child is in the womb.  When the baby is born, there is sufficient supply of prothrombin in its body for a couple days, but during that time it is continually decreasing.  Vitamin K is not formed naturally in the intestine until between the fifth and seventh day of life.  And prothrombin decreases to almost nothing within the first day.  The baby’s body then begins to produce prothrombin at a rapid rate to attain the normal amount.  The rate is so rapid that on the eighth day 110% of the normal level of prothrombin is achieved.  So prothrombin is at the highest level on a person’s eighth day of life, after which the body begins to produce the normal supply.  And vitamin K is now also present in the blood.  Thus, the eighth day is the opportune time to safely perform circumcision to ensure the blood will clot and the boy not bleed to death following circumcision.  Modern science did not discover this fact until AD 1935.
     How did Moses, the penman of Genesis, know to write this prescription in 1400 BC, fully 3900 years before it was discovered by the modern medical science community?  Did he just draw a number out of a hat or was he inspired of God?

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      © Jim Mettenbrink; used by permission. rev.04xx-04xx
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