First of all, the reason I didn't quote the verses and go into detail (besides trying to omit extraneous information from my posts) was because I knew that these passages are arguable. They do not constitute proof that the Bible is pro-choice or anything like it; however, I still think they cast doubt on aspects of what pro-life activists claim is the Biblical view on abortion.

(snip snip)

> In the passage in Exodus, the phrase "that her fruit depart from her" is translated in some cases as "premature birth" and in others as "miscarriage". There does seem to be an implication in the terms (as listed in Strong's Concordance) that the phrase involves live birth. However, the mischief or further injury is identified in a study note in the NIV Study Bible to mean further injury to the mother OR the child. If the child were already dead, there could be no further injury. This would indicate clearly that the "premature birth" translation is the more correct, and so the first case (no further injury) involves no loss of life, and accordingly has a lesser penalty associated with it.

While I'm not a huge Biblical scholar, I'd like to ask what your source on that interpretation is (or what the study note's source is). Are you sure this isn't a case of isogesis? Like defining "pharmakopeia" as "witchcraft" (rather than "poisoning") because of what the "correct" Christian view is? As the verse is translated it seems to me it can be taken either way; not being familiar with Hebrew I can't tell you which way seems more correct based on the original source, but I've heard scholars argue both ways (and this is hardly an unbiased issue).

>
> Going one step further here, verse 22 talks about men (plural) fighting (striving, struggling) with one another. The implication is that the injury to the woman is accidental. To the best of my recollection, there are no cases in Jewish law where accidental killings were subject to the life for a life penalty. Thus, in the case where the child is born live and further harm comes to the child or the mother (and life for a life is extracted) the punishment is MORE harsh than in similar cases of accidental killings. If we assume that the NIV study note and its implication are wrong and that the translation should be "miscarriage" (and thus that the child is born dead and the further harm applies only to the mother) then the penalty without further harm is comparable to other accidental killings, and the penalty with further harm is again more severe than what would normally be handed down in an accidental killing. In either case, this passage actually seems to show that the Jewish law placed a higher value on the life of an unborn fetus than it did on any other life.

Well... I'd argue with this. It's a little ambiguous, but, just looking at this chapter, it *does* say any man who strikes another man and kills him will be put to death. However, in cases of manslaughter, the killer has the option of fleeing to a city of refuge. The reason there are cities of refuge, though, is that if the killer should stray from it then the aggrieved party has the full right to take his life. Creating cities of refuge was an act of mercy, not of justice; as long as one was in such a designated city he was considered under God's special protection. (If I recall my Bible history correctly, of course; this was one of those harbinger symbols of the Messiah, at least if you take the broad view of OT prophecy.) Only if a man had committed so heinous a crime as to *deliberately* murder would God allow the aggrieved party to take the man away from his altar and be killed.

Therefore, killing a pregnant woman while fighting would qualify as manslaughter and the killer's life *would* be forfeit unless he put himself under God's protection. I don't actually see anything that marks this passage off from the others; the "life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise" quote seems to sum up the treatment of *all* murderers, not just this particular situation. (The presence of "burn for burn" might mark this as referring to something more general than two men in a fistfight, after all.)

Of course, it's just interpretation, not proof, but it seems more likely. Just a few verses later the Bible tells us that if an owner is careless about controlling his bull and his bull gores someone, then he must be put to death. Killing someone by carelessness with one's animals seems hardly *more* deliberate or evil a murder than killing someone by not knowing one's own strength in a fistfight; I'd doubt this was an exception to the city of refuge rule. Rather, I think that we're supposed to take the existence of the cities of refuge as implied from now on, not needing to be stated in the law (just as, I suppose, a U.S. law doesn't need to explicitly mention such things as parole or time off for good behavior); whether a deed was intentional or premeditated would've been the decision of the Levites in each particular case, not something that could easily be spelled out in written law. (Which is, after all, common sense.)

(more snippage)

> The issue here is actually not very relevant to abortion. First of all, I disagree with your assessment that the woman and child are being cursed regardless of her faithfulness; the passage says quite clearly that the water will not harm her if she has been faithful. This does seem a bit mystical, but the passage does talk about God being involved in the process, and if you're accepting the truth and accuracy of the Bible as a whole, I sure hope you believe enough in God to believe that if she has been faithful, the water will not harm her. ;-) In any case, what is happening here is that if the woman has been unfaithful, she is being punished for her unfaithfulness. The punishment is barreness, which, to the Jewish women of the time, is a terrible punishment. IF the woman happens to be pregnant at the time, then she will miscarry as a consequence of becoming barren; however, nowhere does the passage state that she is known to be with child.

Granted. In fact, this passage seems rather vague to me, too, but it does have certain implications and it is a "classic" problem passage, which is why I recommended to OneCoolCat that s/he read it. (I, too, question things even when I agree with them. And I recommend that people consider things even when I disagree with them.)

> Because of these things, the relevance of this passage to abortion is essentially non-existent. In this case, a punishment inflicted on a woman for adultery will cause the miscarriage of a fetus IF it exists; in the case of abortion, the woman voluntarily decides to destroy the fetus that she KNOWS to exist. I cannot deny that in this case, the law allows for the possibility of the death of an unborn child; however, allowing a hypothetical fetus to die is far removed from condemning an existing fetus to death.
>

I rather disagree. Here the Bible says there is no evidence against her because she was not caught in the act and there were no witnesses; hence, the only reason a husband could suspect her would be because she had become pregnant and he suspected the timing was off. (Well, not the only reason, but a major reason, back then as in any time period.) One's thigh wasting away and abdomen swelling seems to be more referring to miscarriage than to barrenness. It implies losing the strength to carry the child (thigh wasting away) and premature contractions (abdomen swelling). That's my interpretation based on my limited knowledge, anyway; anyone with a good background in Biblical criticism have a better one?

> All of this, of course, does not touch upon the issue of when life begins. All I wanted to do here is point out that these two passages of Scripture do not serve as problems for the pro-life stance, and that one of them actually appears to support it.
>

I think it's very iffy that the Exodus passage supports a pro-life stance (although it is doubtful whether it supports a truly pro-choice stance either); the most I'd be willing to say is that it says "If you kill a fetus by accident, you have to pay for it, either with a fine or by being banished (life sentence; manslaughter, not first degree murder)." However, notice it still doesn't say whether a woman is allowed to *choose* to take her own fetus's life, and it is *this* that pro-choice activists insist on (hence the term "pro-choice"). Few of us would argue that *anybody* has the right to kill *anyone*'s fetus at any time. (All pro-choice people I've met stress the "choice" part; I've never met anyone truly "pro-abortion", as in "The more abortions the better." They find the forced abortions practiced in the People's Republic of China as repugnant as banning all abortion.)

And the second one? Like you said, it doesn't give us any explicit instructions, but it tells us that God was willing to sacrifice the unborn child's life with the mother's for the mother's crime. (If this isn't clear enough, there's the example of the punishment for David's crime with Bathsheba.) Though this is hardly the only thing in the OT God does that some might call unfair (after all, whole nations were cursed for the sins of their fathers, like the Canaanites) it is still disturbing in a way. After all, we receive no indication that if a woman gives birth to a child conceived in adultery that the baby is to be killed or harmed in any way, and here the priest is invoking God's power against the woman and whatever child she bears... True, it's God's power being invoked, but he commands the *people* to do the invoking. Tough stuff to think about.

> > Wolf "sigh" spirit
>
> Don "Hours of Bible study went into this post--but still, my roommate and I would like to hear from Nyperold or someone equally knowledgeable to confirm some of the translations and assertions I have made here." Monkey

Ar"can't say that I spent *hours* in composing this post, but many months of wrestling with oneself and studying the Bible form the background for this post, and I'd like to echo Don's request; what I wouldn't give to achieve real scholarship someday"thur