Pyrrho

Intent is irrelevant. Look at verse 23: If the woman is accidentally killed, then the punishment is death.



As a side point, I see that threads can go way off topic without repercussions. At least sometimes.

Pyrrho

First of all, if we want to get a correct interpretation, it will be well to consider Talmudic examinations (as well as Jewish practices of the time the Bible was written), and an exact look at the original language that is used. Although this favors my position, I will drop it and proceed without such niceties. This is because such things are virtually always rejected by the losing party, and also because, even if my interpretation (which is not mine alone, as obviously there are translators of popular versions who agree with me) is wrong, it won't make much difference for any Christian who claims to derive his or her beliefs from the Bible. Now, without further ado, I will respond directly to your arguments.

True, it is not a verse about intentional abortion. However, going on the assumption that the verse is about miscarriage (which you suppose for the sake of your first argument, so let no one be misled by objections to this assumption regarding your first argument), it is clear that the loss of the fetus is not regarded as very important, since the punishment is only a fine. Many things are punished with death in the Bible, such as a woman wearing a man's clothing, a woman not being a virgin when she marries, etc. Furthermore, it also shows that the pregnant woman is clearly more important than the fetus, as her death would require the death penalty for the punishment, rather than a fine, even though she be accidentally killed (verse 23). The same goes for the men who "strive". So the fetus is obviously not regarded as a life, on the "miscarriage interpretation", as you call it.

By the way, the fine, of course, is required because of the loss of property to the man (the husband). If he wishes to give away his property, there is no crime in that.


Now, let us suppose that you are correct, for the sake of argument, about the "pre-mature live birth interpretation", as you call it. We would then be faced with the fact that the Bible never mentions abortion at all, either intentional or unintentional.

God evidently did not think it worthwhile to EVER tell anyone that abortion is wrong, but did decide that it was worthwhile to go into great detail about other things, such as telling people not to eat pork. Evidently, not eating pork was of greater importance to God, since he took the trouble of telling us not to eat pork (according to the Bible), but did not tell us not to have abortions.

Those who oppose abortion have absolutely nothing from the Bible upon which to base their opinion of abortion. The absolute best case for those Christians opposed to abortion is this: It is wrong, but for some mysterious reason, God never bothered to tell us that it is wrong. This is exceedingly weak indeed, particularly as the Bible is such a long collection of books, with many laws (as well as other things) repeated, yet not once does God ever tell us abortion is wrong.

Frankly, I would say that that is sufficient to show that the matter is of no great importance to God; otherwise, He would surely have mentioned it and made it clear. But as He chose not to, this sends a clear message that the matter is far more trivial than any of His divine laws, such as the prohibition on eating pork.

yguy

OTOH, another translation of Ex 21:22 says:

"If men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she F429 gives birth prematurely, yet there is no injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman's husband may F430 demand of him, and he shall pay R718 as F431 the judges decide."

Therefore, it is not even clear that verse 22 refers to the death of the fetus. If true, verse 23 would only buttress the anti-abortion argument.

yguy

It doesn't mention pedophilia either, not to mention a multitude of other sins, which are at least as many as there are people. They are all addressed implicitly under the the commandment to "love thy God with all thy heart, all thy soul, all thy mind, and all thy strength."

There would have been no need to do so unless the people had been tempted to do it. I don't know of any evidence of that.

mnkbdky

First, I have a couple of questions (and these are not to suggest a negative answer, I am ignorant of the answer and would like one).

Do you, Pyrrho or anyone else, have a working knowledge of Biblical Hebrew?

If the same question is put to me, then I would answer with the affirmative.

Are you aware of ancient or contempory Jewish practices?

If the same question is put to me I would answer with the affirmative. In fact, I live in a Reformed Jewish synagogue.

(This was not to be arrogant I am merely stating a fact and my credentials)

Now on to my commentary. In my post I dealt with the original languages. And as far as the ancient practices are concerned the matter is complicated.

Around the time of Christ (4 to 6 B.C.E) there were two schools of though on the subject of abortion. The first was the alexandrian school, which demanded punishment for damage to the fetus acccording to the stage of development. The second, was the Palestinian school, which did no regard the fetus as a person and demanded punishment only for harm to the mother--even here though there was a faction that granted the fetus personhood. However, both school were united on the fact that deliberate non-theapeutic abortions were immoral. So, in the early Jewish mind, accidental and therapeutic abortions were acceptable, yet there was hostile debate as to the degree of punishment and personhood, but deliberate non-therapeutic abortions were condemned.

I also have one more thing to add to the interp of the passage.

In verse 22, "When men strive together, and hurt a woman with child, so that there is a miscarriage, and yet no harm follows, the one who hurt her shall be fined, according as the woman's husband shall lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine"(RSV). If we do not assume that the verb yatza means miscarriage at the outset and could mean pre-mature birth, then, there is an abiguity to the referrent of the very next clause and the first part of 23, "and yet no harm follows (22); If any harm follows, then (23)." If miscarriage is not assumed then that clauses could either refer to the pre-mature infant or to the mother. That is, the noun ason, meaning harm, could be referring to the infant and therefore would be demand lex talionis, the law of retaliation or an eye for an eye, which merely means nothing beyond that which was taken. If this is the case, then, if the fighting causes the baby to die, then, the persons who caused the pre-mature infants death should be put to death as well.

It doesn't get easy. This passage has been interpreted both ways for thousands of years. You must make your choice. But do it informed and not because you want abortion to be legal. Acient Jewish custom clearly condemns deliberate non-therapeutic abortions. If we only made abortion legal for therapeutic reason's, meaning that the life of the mother was threaten also, then we would have very few abortions.

So, as you see the evidence does not support your position. Rather there has been dispute through the ages. But the majority has favored the use of abortion only in cases of imminent danger to the mother and condemned non-therapeutic abortions.

I will check with the rabbi tomorrow for Talmudic referrences, since I do not know them off hand.


Shalom.

mnkbdky

I actually mis-spoke here. Death would not be required. Rather it is only the principle of justice. The passage does not require death in either case. That is, death would not be required whether it is the mother that incurs further injury or the infant. Those who are the cause may only recieve a punishment that is suited to the situation. After all, this is what life for life, eye for eye, ect. means. And as seen above it was not right according to Jewish law to give the death penalty for unintentional killing (Exodus 21:13-14, "He who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death. But if he did not lie in wait for him, but God let him fall into his hand, then I will appoint you a place to to which he may flee). The law about two fighting men is in the same chapter, so clearly the act of further unintentional harm in v.23 cannot mean that the perpetrator must be put to death. That would actually be in violation of the law.

Pyrrho

The first thing to observe is the fact that the ancient Jewish people, like most ancient people, regarded adulthood as coming before one is considered an adult under current U.S. law. So many acts that are now considered acts of "pedophilia" would be acceptable as far as Biblical standards are concerned. The second thing is that we can know what is supposedly important to God according to what is revealed, and therefore pedophilia, as a separate issue from anything else, was not considered important (if we are to believe the Bible). There are, of course, rules against rape in the Bible, though the standards are not quite the same as most modern standards of what constitutes rape. And, of course, there are rules regarding who one may have sex with generally, such as relatives of various types, and then of course there is the relevance of marriage to this topic as well. So one could argue that that matter is already adequately covered from what is clearly stated in the Bible, though I have no interest in discussing that, as it is irrelevant to this thread. That the people must be 18, however, is clearly not a Biblical requirement.

As for your claim:

"They are all addressed implicitly under the the commandment to "love thy God with all thy heart, all thy soul, all thy mind, and all thy strength.""

This is clearly unsatisfactory as a complete guide to life, as one could as easily say that this implicitly states anything one wants it to implicitly state. And clearly, if the Bible is the word of God, then God agrees with me on this, as He saw fit to say a good deal more about what one should do. If that alone were satisfactory to explain what we should do, then there would be no need for the lengthy list of rules in the Bible.

That is, I believe, typically taken to give the spirit of the law, as representing the attitude one should have, but does not tell one precisely what one should do or refrain from doing.


Do you imagine that people now are fundamentally different from what they were 2 to 4 thousand years ago? Do you imagine that they did not care whether or not a woman was pregnant? That you did not know about ancient abortions does not mean that they did not happen.

The fact that there are no rules for automobile traffic in the Bible makes sense, but the possibilities regarding sex and birth are not so very different now. (Of course, we have more effective methods of birth control, abortion, and more effective fertility treatments, but the basic idea of all of these things has not changed; people have always wanted to control fertility, as long as they have had any understanding of it.)

For some interesting reading on this subject of abortion and how it relates to religion and the Bible, you may wish to take a look at these:

http://www.infomotions.com/serials/b...traception.txt

http://www.religioustolerance.org/abo_hist.htm

http://www.libchrist.com/other/abortion/jewish.html

http://www.korpios.org/resurgent/L-bibleforbids.htm

http://www.pinn.net/~sunshine/book-sum/contra1.html

http://www.religioustolerance.org/abo_biblh.htm

http://www.cbctrust.com/abortion.html

http://www.2think.org/carl_sagan_abortion.shtml

http://www.pinn.net/~sunshine/essays/abort97.html

These are just a few sites that a quick search provided, that are interesting. Naturally, you may wish to do some searching on your own as well.

Pyrrho

As I believe I have already indicated, I do not wish to argue about which interpretation is correct, as it is not likely to be a matter about which there is likely to be any real chance of everyone coming to agreement. As you say, there has been disagreement about this for some time.

We agree that it is a crime, according to Exodus, to cause a miscarriage accidentally. That, however, does not entail that abortions are wrong. It is certainly possible to regard causing an accidental miscarriage as a matter of destroying what belongs to another (essentially, a property issue), and that would explain the matter of the fine. (I don't think the fine makes any sense if one is speaking only of causing a premature birth, because, if no harm follows, no damage is done, so why should anyone be punished for that, particularly when it is only an accident? However, I will leave such matters aside, as I do not wish to argue about the correct interpretation.)

I do disagree with you when you state that abortions were only allowed for therapeutic reasons in ancient times, at least in the early stages of pregnancy. I believe that a couple of links I provided in my response to "yguy" are relevant to this. Additionally, "therapeutic reasons" has been used in some very broad ways in some Jewish traditions (of course, there has been some disagreement between various types of Judaism), so it might be worthwhile for that notion to be fleshed out a bit.

The bottom line is, ancient people did perform abortions, and God, as represented in the Bible, NEVER saw fit to tell anyone not to do this. That seems to favor the idea that God didn't have a problem with it.

yguy

I think not, actually. Sex with minors is not necessarily considered pedophilia even now. That aside, however, the average lifespan was also about half what it is today.

A false premise, which I have never agreed with.

That ancient abortions did happen doesn't mean that they happened in Israel in Moses' lifetime. That's the point.

The only evidence that interests me is that which shows that abortions were tolerated by the Israelites during the time of Moses.

Pyrrho

I could not disagree with you more. Verse 23 explicitly requires a life for a life. Verse 13 seems more ambiguous than verse 23, so it seems unreasonable to use it to reject verse 23.

Besides, as verse 13 seems to be a modification of the rule presented in verse 12, why not regard verse 23 as a further modification or clarification of when, exactly, a life is required? Your off-hand rejection of explicit statements makes me disinclined to pursue these matters further with you. If we cannot trust what is explicitly stated in the Bible, then it is useless as a guide to action, and we should forget about the Bible entirely, as a work of superstitious mythology rather than the word of God. If the work is self-contradictory, cast it to the flames, for it cannot be the work of a perfect being, nor can it be trusted to guide our lives. It must then be the work of people, who either were deluded themselves, or who wish to deceive others. Or the work of some evil being that wishes to ensnare us in error.

I would be interested in hearing what your Rabbi had to say about your rejection of verse 23, as it seems to me you are rejecting what is clearly stated.