The Bible is Electricity 2

Last updated on: September 8, 2011 at 5:27 am by Scot McKnight

The Bible is Electricity 2 2011-09-08T05:27:53-05:00 Scot McKnight

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If you were asked to defend the view that abortion is wrong, which biblical texts would you call in for support?

How do non-Christian scholars, in particular Jewish scholars, find the Bible of use in the abortion debate? We are looking at a new book by Richard Elliott Friedman and Shawna Dolansky called The Bible Now. In their second study of how to bring the Bible into the now, they look at what the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible, and they often just call it the “Bible”) says about abortion.

Friedman-Dolansky think there are three possible texts to examine: the “do not murder” text from the Ten commandments; the fighters who strike a pregnant woman leading to a miscarriage (Exod 21:22-25); and Jeremiah’s (and they add a few others here) complaint in Jeremiah 20:14-18 that he wished had never been born (and they argue this is the only text in the Hebrew Bible that actually refers to abortion).

Friedman-Dolansky use a methodological angle here: they contend that the texts are not clear enough to be used to support or criticize abortion. Thus, the “murder” text is not the same term used for “killing” an infant in the womb, so the murder text is not about abortion (abortion, in other words, uses a different word in Jeremiah than “murder”; to abort is to “kill” not “murder”; so the Ten Commandments can’t be used). The fighters don’t lead to an abortion but to a miscarriage — two different things. And they contend the complaints as indicating that some saw dying in the womb better than having lived a bad life. [I just can’t comprehend how these texts can be read this way. I discount this argument.]

I will add here that I am opposed to abortion; a woman has a right to choose but not a right to choose to abort a person who is deprived of a choice; I oppose our government’s support of abortion, etc..

Then they discuss when “life” begins, and it begins and ends with breathing — hence at birth. But this discussion is prejudged in conclusion by the angle of the question. What if we asked, not when does a person start breathing — when they begin breathing — but when do biblical authors recognize a person? In this case, then, Jeremiah 1’s comment that God knew Jeremiah before he was born or in the womb. I think other evidence needs to be considered to answer their question.

Abortion in the ancient near east: there is evidence of recipes for creating an abortion and there is one law that prohibits a woman taking the life of a child in her womb.

I think Exodus 21:22-25 deserves more consideration. Here is what the Bible says:

22 “If people are fighting and hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows. 23 But if there is serious injury [to mother, to child?], you are to take life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.

Yes, there is room for debate here. Namely, to whom is the injury? The fetus or the mother? If the latter, things change; if the former, a discussion about abortion can be entertained. Namely, if the injury is to the fetus now born prematurely and compensation is demanded, then there is clear recognition of the viability of the child in the womb as a person with rights. And Middle Assyrian Law, which Friedman-Dolansky cite, judges that compensation for the fetus is also demanded.

Because Friedman-Dolansky don’t consider NT texts, I want to add one that possibly refers to the Christian rejection of abortion. In 1 Timothy 2:15 we read this: “But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety..” If this text is a response to what many call the “new Roman women” at Ephesus, and you can read about this in my book The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible, and if one of the practices of the new Roman women was abortion (good evidence for this), and if Paul is responding by urging the Christian women not to go along with the new Roman women but to realize that they can find full status as mothers as well, then there is the possible indication that the early Christians were already opposing abortion in the New Testament period.

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