12 Common Phrases That Are Shockingly From the Bible

‘KISS OF LIFE’

‘Kiss of life’ is thought to have entered English as an opposite to Judas’ treacherous ‘kiss of death.’ It’s been used in Britain since at least 1961 as a term for mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, and its use in a more general sense goes back even further—in 1947 the phrase was briefly an advertising slogan for a firm of Detroit car salesmen.

Today, however, the kiss of life—both as a phrase and as an action—is falling out of favor. Research shows that unconscious patients do better with chest compressions alone than they do when someone’s trying to blow air down their throat.

And mouth-to-mouth resuscitation can go horribly wrong, with patients coughing up blood and vomiting and other such unpleasantness. In one famous incident from the 1970s, a British man almost died from a disease he caught when he gave the kiss of life to his dead pet parrot.