In this week's portion of Vayeshev, we read about the birth of Judah and Tamar's two sons, Peretz and Zerach. The Torah describes how Zerach's hand emerges first from the womb and how the midwife ties a crimson string around his finger indicating he is the firstborn. The hand then retracts and Peretz is born first.
In an article for thetorah.com [1], Dr. Eran Viezel claims that such a birth is medically impossible without killing one or both of the twins. He similarly claims that the Torah’s recorded description of Jacob and Esau’s birth is scientifically impossible. Viezel concludes condescendingly:
Biblical narratives were written by men or mostly by men, and in ancient Israel, as was the case in most places until recently, men were not present at childbirth, due in part to, the view that childbirth generated impurity...
Based on research undertaken by various (medically qualified) members of this group, we will endeavour to demonstrate that the author’s claims are rejected by the available medical knowledge.
Viezel introduces his article by asserting confidently that:
Twins cannot switch places mid birth. They do not come out of the uterus together nor are they both in the birth canal at the same time.
However medical research has firmly rejected Viezel’s statement. An important review of births of twins facing in the opposite directions revealed that a majority of cases where one twin had his or her hand out of the birth canal, the other twin was born first [2]. This suggests not only that twins are able to switch positions during the birthing process, but also that there was nothing unusual about Zerach being born after Peretz.
In a connected article he claims further,
In a connected article he claims further,
There is no evidence at all of babies exiting the womb with their arms outstretched. Yet biblical accounts of childbirth contain explicit and implicit descriptions of the hand as the first limb to emerge from the womb.
Once again, Viezel’s assertion is contrary to scientific findings. While the hand emerging first is rare, medical records dating back to the 17thcentury have recorded the occurrence and survival rates of such births. According to the Oxford Textbook of Obstetric Anesthesia, when the hand emerges first, the baby is considered to have a compound presentation. Viezel does mention compound presentation in his footnotes but states that it results in the fetus breaking its neck as it exits the birth canal and therefore does not produce a good survival rate.
Medical research has found this claim to be wholly untrue. While the death rate is higher for compound presentations with twins, it is not significantly higher than regular twin births, which have a seven to ten-fold higher mortality than single births. So, while the chance of death is higher, the baby's living is still statistically a more likely outcome [3]. It is also worth noting that case studies from midwives show successful deliveries in very similar circumstances without medical intervention. [4]
Moving on to Dr. Viezel’s claims concerning the unusual twin-birth of Jacob and Esau, Professor John Makujina has concluded that:
The abnormalities in this birth, then, amount first to the early rupturing of Jacob's membranes, which would enable him to grasp the ankle of his brother. The second anomaly would be the almost simultaneous births of the two brothers, with the added complication of Jacob grasping his brother's ankle – anomaly number three. Interestingly, conditions that would facilitate or increase the likelihood of the last anomaly are themselves quite normal: the intrauterine position of the twins and the grasp reflex. In any case, the first two abnormalities are hardly unprecedented, and the third (grabbing the ankle), though unprecedented, is certainly conceivable.
Makujina concludes:
Given that bizarre events such as this occur outside the world of Genesis, Viezel is in no position to discredit the remarkable elements in the births of Jacob and Esau as the inventions of an obstetrically benighted male author. [5]
What follows in Viezel's article is a series of speculative claims that are built upon the initial incorrect facts examined above. For example, Viezel writes:
Perhaps this image is related to the idea that the womb is depicted metaphorically as a door, and doors are opened with hands. The use of a door as a metaphor for the womb is found most clearly in Job 3, where Job curses the day he was born:Job 3:10 “Because it did not block the door of my [mother’s] womb…”
Not only is this a huge assumption based on a single verse, but it also ignores the fact that Job 41:14 also describes the mouth as a door. “Who will open the doors of his face? Around his teeth is terror."
Are we to say that the doors of the mouth also require a hand? Or could it be simply that the author of Job chose to use a door as a metaphor for parts of the body that have openings?
Viezel further postulates,
Biblical narratives were written by men or mostly by men, and in ancient Israel, as was the case in most places until recently, men were not present at childbirth," due in part to, "the view that childbirth generated impurity...the father is not present at the birth, but rather awaits word from a messenger, as reflected in Jeremiah 20:15: “Cursed is the man who brought my father the news, saying: A boy is born to you."
Does the fact that the few recorded biblical births refer solely to female midwives, combined with this one verse in Jeremiah really justify the forceful conclusion that "men were not present at childbirth"? Does the possibility of a relatively minor risk of impurity for a man mean men were never present during deliveries? This claim is possible, but by no means definitive given the very limited evidence we have regarding ancient Israelite birthing practices. Viezel’s theory also relies on the assumption that the hypothetical male authors would not have discovered any details of childbirth from midwives or other women.
Finally, Viezel concludes,
In standard births of cows, sheep, and goats, as well as horses, camels, and donkeys, the hooves (the tips of the forelegs) are the first parts of the body to emerge from the womb.
Viezel assumes that men's only experience with birth involved these animals, and thus any male writing about childbirth would have assumed that human babies emerge hands first as well. Of course, given all the above, this is speculative and based on very weak evidence and questionable readings of biblical verses.
Unfortunately, this sort of speculation is rather common in the world of biblical studies, where academics strike a confident tone and create the impression they are almost certainly correct, even when their ideas are poorly supported by available evidence. Websites which seek to publish such articles must take greater care to examine carefully the evidence being offered to support biblical theories. Weak speculation, while sometimes eye-catching and superficially enjoyable, is a poor substitute for true scholarly analysis.
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[2] Weissberg S, O’Leary J. Compound Presentation of the Fetus. Obstetrics and Gynecology. 1973;41(1):60-64.
[3] Clark V, Van M, Fernando R. Oxford Textbook of Obstetric Anaesthesia. Oxford University Press; 2016
[5] John Makujina, “Male Obstetric Competence in Ancient Israel: A Response to Two Recent Proposals”, VT 66.1 (2016): 78-94.
First posted to Facebook 6 December 2020, here.
