The chief of a foundation that is responsible for the International Standard Version of the Holy Bible, a trained theologian, says the family of Jahi McMath has a legitimate argument against the hospital's contention that she is "brain-dead" and her medical treatments should be halted.
She's not dead.
At least, not according to the Bible's definition, said Dr. William Welty, a Ph.D. who graduated from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and later taught New Testament Greek at Simon Greenleaf University.
Welty told Christopher Dolan, an attorney representing the family of Jahi McMath, that he could be an expert witness on death according to the Bible, in an email that was made available to WND.
The fight currently is going on in Oakland, Calif., over the 13-year-old girl's future, who was declared brain dead after a tonsillectomy surgery went horribly wrong. A court has given the family until Monday before the hospital is allowed to discontinue all medical treatment.
"I have followed the Jahi McMath medical debacle for a number of days now. I am a professional theologian in the evangelical tradition of which Ms. McMath's mother Nailah Winkfield appears to be part," he wrote.
"As I am an expert in biblical theology, including Greek and Hebrew, with respect to the question of what evangelical Christians believe about death, I might be able to be of assistance in the way of providing expert testimony about what the conservative biblical tradition to which Ms. McMath's mother belongs actually teaches, which is that death is defined not as absence of brain waves but rather the lack of a circulating blood supply," he wrote.
"As the Bible states that the life of the flesh is in the blood (citing Leviticus in the Hebrew Scriptures) and not in brain wave activity, perhaps a compromise stipulation could be presented to ask the court to order that if Ms. McMath is disconnected from life support, if her heart continues to beat on its own that she should be maintained by fluid nutrition at the hospital's expense, given that the hospital's negligence is the proximate cause of this difficulty."
Welty told WND that the Bible doesn't define death as a cessation, reduction or absence of brain activity.
It defines life as being in the blood, and "as a closely held religious belief," the family of the 13-year-old has a right to practice their faith.
He said while science contends that it understands death, and life, and the narrow divide, he pointed out a recent report that indicates that may not be so clear.
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SOURCE: WND.com
Bob Unruh
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