MALE BREAST MILK ERROR in the KJB?
One dieth in his full strength, being wholly at ease and quiet. HIS BREASTS are full of MILK, and his bones are moistened with marrow. – Job 2:23,24
"It has never been profitable in any generation for men to alter the written records of God's Word to harmonize with the demands of the so-called scholarship of that generation. We are under the necessity of accepting the Book just as God wrote it, and our knowledge must be brought into harmony with His revelation," wrote the late Dr. Harry Rimmer.
The KJB translates and records this passage thus, THROUGH LITERALEQUIVALENCY. Many early and modern translators changed the reading, probably because they did not believe a man's breasts could produce milk.
Some EarlyTranslations
Late Hebrew Version -- "His vessels are full of milk."
Greek -- "His pectorals are fat-laden."
Latin -- "His viscera are full of fat."
French -- "His flanks are full of fat."
Some Modern Translations
NIV -- ". . . his body well nourished, his ones rich with marrow."
(A note at the bottom of the page says the Hebrew word is uncertain, however, the Hebrew word is LATIN which the lexicon says is the plural form of "breasts")
RSV-- “. . . his body full of fat and the marrow of his bones moist." (Has the same note as above that Hebrew word is uncertain)
LIVING BIBLE -- "He destroys those who are healthy, wealthy, fat, and prosperous." (No footnote concerning translation as was found in previous versions)
NASV -- "His sides are filled out with fat, And the marrow of his bones is moist." (No footnote concerning translation)
NEW KING JAMES VERSION -- "His pails are full of milk." (No footnote)
Is it possible that the modern bible translators, along with these early translations cited, decided to help God say what He meant to say in Job 21:24? Whoever heard of a man's breasts secreting milk?
Well . . .?
Well, what is the answer? Is the KJB in error here in that they pose such a ridiculous translation?Doctor Greenblatt, Orthodox Jew, Says No Error!
Dr. Greenblatt writes; "Scholars in preparing the REVISED STANDARD VERSION (RSV) have retrenched from the original position and subverted Job 21:24 to `his body full of fat.' This is indeed unfortunate because the recently published Targum (Aramaic translation) recovered from Cave XI of Khirbet Qumran in the Judean wilderness speaks of ‘HIS TEATS ARE FULL OF MILK.’”
Recorded in Dr. Greenblatt's book is medical documentation of cases where men's breasts secreted milk in 1738, 1837, 1864 and certain malnourished prisoners of World War II. He further states:
"With recent advances in our knowledge of lactation it has been determined that psychophysical disturbances and disorders of the endocrine glandular system are responsible for such curiosities as lactation in males and in virgin females."
"The mystique surrounding inappropriate galactorrhea in man and woman is no longer the perplexing enigma of by-gone years. We can confidently say that the translation in Job, His breasts are full of milk, was not simply a figure of speech."
The late Dr. Greenblatt, an Orthodox Jew and world renowned endocrinologist, is perhaps best known as the pioneer of the birth control pill. SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES, Robert B. Greenblatt, M.D., and (Lippincott Co., Philadelphia and Toronto, 3rd Ed. 1977, pp. 129-133)
"Hunter refers to a man of fifty who shared equally with his wife the suckling of their children. There is an instance of a sailor who, having lost his wife, took his son to his own breast to quiet him, and after three or four days was able to nourish him. Humboldt describes a South American peasant of thirty-two who, when his wife fell sick immediately after delivery, sustained the child with his own milk, which came soon after the application to the breast; for five months the child took no other nourishment.
In Franklin's 'Voyages to the Polar Seas' he quotes the instance of an old Chippewa who, on losing his wife in childbirth, had put his infant to his breast and earnestly prayed that milk might flow; he was fortunate enough to eventually produce enough milk to rear the child . . . According to Mehliss some missionaries in Brazil in the sixteenth century asserted that there was a whole Indian nation whose women had small and withered breasts, and whose children owed their nourishment entirely to the males. Ford mentions the case of a captain who in order to soothe a child's cries put it to his breast, and who subsequently developed a full supply of milk. He also quotes an instance of a man suckling his own children." – Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine," by George Gould, M.D. and Walter Pyle, M.D. (1896)
"Widower learns to breastfeed - A Sri Lankan widower has attracted the attention of doctors for his ability to breastfeed his young daughter. Mr. B. Wijeratne, from Walapanee, near Colombo, took to breastfeeding her soon after his wife died three months ago while giving birth to their second child . . . His elder daughter, 18-month-old Nisansala Madhushani, was so used to her mother's milk that she would not take formula milk . . . The 38-year-old's ability to produce milk was noticed by doctors at the government hospital in the town of Kurunegala. Dr Kamal Jayasinghe, a spokesman for the hospital, said: 'Men with a hyperactive prolactinehormone can produce breast milk.'" – Ananova.com (November 1, 2002)
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"We've known for some time that many male mammals, including some men, can undergo breast development and lactate under special conditions." Therefore, the prosperous (perhaps gluttonous) man in Job 21:24 can LITERALLY have breasts full of milk. It is possible that this was more common in ancient times." – Discovery Magazine, in an article entitled, "Father's Milk" (Feb.1995)
"Is it not possible that the story in the 'Cloud of Witnesses' of a man, during the time of persecution in Scotland, putting his child to his own breast, and finding, to the astonishment of the whole country, that milk followed the act, may have been literally true? It was regarded and is quoted as a miracle; but the feelings of the father toward the child of a murdered mother must have been as nearly as possible analogous to the maternal feeling; and, as anatomists declare the structure of both male and female breasts to be identical, there is nothing physically impossible in the alleged result." – David Livingstone
– Original article copied, edited, compiled, expanded, and annotated by Herb Evans