Gen. 3:16 and giving birth

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MarcoPG

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Hello,
I was wondering, since painful birth came after the fall, as read in Genesis 3:16

To the woman he said:
I will intensify your toil in childbearing;
in pain* you shall bring forth children.
Yet your urge shall be for your husband,
and he shall rule over you.

Since pain came in with Original sin, is it right to think that giving birth was meant to be painless?
And then what about animals? Were we the only ones to not feel painor suffer?
 
MarcoPG said:
Hello,
I was wondering, since painful birth came after the fall, as read in Genesis 3:16

To the woman he said:
I will intensify your toil in childbearing;
in pain* you shall bring forth children.
Yet your urge shall be for your husband,
and he shall rule over you.

Since pain came in with Original sin, is it right to think that giving birth was meant to be painless?
And then what about animals? Were we the only ones to not feel painor suffer?
Click to expand...
Yes.
Yes.
 
Seems to me that God said He would “intensify” (or “greatly multiply”) the pain of childbirth (depending on which version you look at). Wouldn’t this mean that there would be some pain in childbirth? I would think so. I’m no vet (or farmer), but I’ve seen dogs and cats give birth, and it doesn’t compare to what my wife and daughter went through to give birth. Just to give a quick comparison - I had a cat give birth to 6 healthy kittens in less than 2 hours (she also cleaned them herself as they were born). It took my daughter 36 hours to deliver 1 child (just a little over 6 pounds).
 
MarcoPG said:
Hello,
I was wondering, since painful birth came after the fall, as read in Genesis 3:16

To the woman he said:
I will intensify your toil in childbearing;
in pain* you shall bring forth children.
Yet your urge shall be for your husband,
and he shall rule over you.

Since pain came in with Original sin, is it right to think that giving birth was meant to be painless?
And then what about animals? Were we the only ones to not feel painor suffer?
Click to expand...
St. Augustine in his writing on the Book of Genesis explains that all animals bear their offspring in pain. He reasons that this pain is a condition of mortality, not a condition of punishment in the animal world (because animals lack the prerequisite traits to sin).

He notes that the pain felt by women in childbirth since the fall is because sin resulted in the loss of immortality. Mortality was the punishment; pain in childbirth was a result of the real punishment (losing immortality).
 
Childbirth is painful because the act of pushing a baby through a birth canal is painful.

Let’s not forget that the folks who were writing these things down were the same ones who believed a man was blind because his parents had sinned.
 
MarcoPG said:
Since pain came in with Original sin, is it right to think that giving birth was meant to be painless?
Click to expand...
Did it?

Did Adam feel pain if he stubbed his toe in the days before he ate the apple?
 
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