I don’t see why not. If Christians are going to tell me I can’t have an abortion because God doesn’t like it, I can now point to where it says that God damn well does, too.
It’s interesting that the other scriptures you listed it seems fairly clear that we are the people we are in the womb. Yet in this scripture it’s apparent that the penalty for causeing a woman to lose her unborn child is not the same penalty as murder.
What does that indicate? That abortion is bad but not even close to being murder?
Probably because they were considered too likely to die. Infant mortality was much higher then than now.
Most branches of Judaism and some forms of Protestantism, which have parts of the same Bible as a guide, don’t have a problem with birth control. Some branches of Judaism have issues with barrier methods of birth control (because it’s spilling your seed on the ground), and maybe there are some ultra-Orthodox groups that don’t approve of birth control at all, but Conservative and Reform Judaism leave the decision on birth control up to the couple.
There’s certainly no concept in any branch of Judaism that I know of that sex should be only for procreation. In Jewish law, a man is obligated to father at least two children (if he can)- there’s no rule on when that should happen. Women aren’t obligated to have children, because of the risk of pregnancy and childbearing (obligating someone to do something that puts their life at risk is a general no-no in Judaism- there are only a couple of laws, out of literally hundreds, that you’re not obligated to ignore if they put your life at risk).
Interpretation can be applied in just about anything. I’m not arguing anything you’ve posted.
At the time Job was written, did people understand and know what a womb is? I’m not steeped in the history of that time so I honestly don’t know.
Could the womb be metaphorical? As in, borne of God and not biologically explainable at the time? (If that makes sense. If not, I’m sure everyone can figure it out.)
On preview, the first paragraph is the response to the quote. Everything else is mindless wandering.
For me, I can’t quote anything from the Bible as any sort of a cite. I can offer “proof” that the Bible and all of Christianity is false. Every single part of it. From the laws, to diet, to fasting. I can, off the top of my head, tell you why it’s bullshit. Even if it has the same credibility of the Bible to an atheist, I can tell you anything you need to know about debunking Chritianity. Or Judaism and Islam (well, diet, anyway).
I think where people seem to go wrong is equating the Bible to everyday life. The Bible is sort of a template for a life based on certain morals and beleifs.
As a Catholic, I beleive abortion to be a sin. However, I also see it isn’t a black and white issue. I would prefer an abortion never be performed. I also would prefer a woman to not die because she has no choice but to give birth. Of course, masturbation is a sin so I’m going to hell anyway. :eek:
My crossroads is the point of abortion being a form of birth control. If it’s used because the pregnancy is inconvenient, I can’t accept it. And no, I don’t have to accept it. I can’t stop it and won’t do anything to try to, but nobody can tell me I have to accept it.
Point is, I have deep seated beleifs on this. I won’t tell anyone they can’t do it. And I certainly won’t try to quote the Bible if I ever did. At the same time I expect others to not tell me I’m wrong in what I beleive.
Sorry for the rambling and hope it made sense. What’s right for some isn’t right for another. I can accept that. What I can’t accept is someone telling me I’m wrong for a core beleif.
It doesn’t even indicate that abortion is bad.
It simply indicates that if, through negligence, you destroy someone else’s property you are obliged to pay a fine for it. There are also laws stating what fines you have to pay if your bull fights with and kill someone elses bull. That doesn’t indicate that killing a bull is bad. All it indicates is that you are repsonsible when fights destroy other people’s property.
You were, of course, free to kill your own bull any time you liked. It wasn’t the killing of the bull that was the problem. It was the killing of someone else’s bull. And by the same argument we might reason that the above scripture indicates that it wasn’t the killing of the unborn child that was the issue. It was the killing of someone else’s unborn child.
Most countries have precisely the same laws in place today. Women are free to kill their own unbron children, but if through carelessness they kill someone else’s unborn child they will be held accountable and liable for considerable damages. There is no inconsistency in such laws. Just because abortion is legal doesn’t mean that we can’t recognise that a misccariage of a wanted child is damaging.
Perhaps the easiest way to resolve this is to consider that the husband sets the penalty for the loss of the child. So if the husband wished to set the penalty at nothing that would presumably be acceptable. Or to put it another way, even if this law were enforced abortion would still be without any penalty provided the husband consented.
Beleif
Belief
There. Sprinkle those about as you see fit. :o
Am I misreading this? It reads to me that killing the fetus alone is a fine and killing the fetus plus an additional injury to the mother is the death penalty. It doesn’t read to me that killing the woman is necessary for the death penalty.
You’re not misreading, the passage was just badly edited. In its complete form it reads:
IOW the death penalty only applies if the woman dies. If she loses an eye then the perpetrators have an eye removed, if she breaks an arm the pertrators have an arm broken and so forth.
Only the death of the mother will result in the death penalty for the perpetrators.
Not sure why I missed the last bit of that verse which would have made it more clear but Blake has got it.
Thanks to everyone, especially Whack-a-Mole, Blake, cmkeller, and Otto for the Bible cites and discussion - that’s exactly what I was looking for. The Bible’s stance on whether a fetus is a person or not is really the heart of my question, and Whack-a-Mole’s cites (and cmkeller’s interesting OT tort case seem to indicate that the the Bible doesn’t definitely say it is a person, and even suggests perhaps it’s not.
It sounds like, from a non-doctrinal point of view, the Bible reflects the conventional thinking of the times (especially with the no value before one month concept), given the high infant mortality rate, etc.
It would be interesting (to me at least) to try and see if there’s a noticeable shift in the Biblical stance on this in the NT vs. OT. Most of Whack-a-Mole’s cites for the fetus != person position seem to be from the OT, which I would attribute to the generally harsher time period than the NT. Anyone know of a comparision or study already done on that?
Thanks for all the good comments!
Arjuna34
Fair enough and probably exactly correct. The point here though is someone trying to make a claim that the Bible prohibits abortion. Passages like the one you were referencing belie the notion that life is sacrosanct from the moment of conception to the point that people in the Bible didn’t even deem a newborn worthy of much note (much less a fetus).
If the notion that the Bible is the inerrant word of God and God is so uppity on the sanctity of life all the way back to the moment of conception you’d think God would have been a little more clear on it. Instead we see indications all over the Bible that this wasn’t the case (and the few that suggest it might be the case are hardly clear on the matter).
It’s worth noting that most of the passages about “forming in the womb” and so forth seem to imply that you existed/envisioned long before you were even concieved. So it’s not particularly clear what relevance these passages have to abortion directly. And since God is forming you in the womb, it would seem that at the point in which you are the in womb, you are not completely you yet.
I do not remember the chapter or verse anymore, but it seemed to me that in the Old Testement God closed up the wombs of women he didn’t want to concieve, and punished women by making them barren. No need for abortions. Now days we have the Government and pro birther’s telling people they have to bear a child, whether they can bear it emotionally, physically or financially,making sure it is born seems to be the prime reason,after it is born they than say their responsibility ends and to heck with the woman and child.
Monavis
None that I can think of. I think the closest thing to a mention of birth control would be in Genesis 38:9-10, the reference to Onan’s taking steps to ensure that his wife, Tamar, did not become pregnant:
9 And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother’s wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother.
10 And the thing which he did displeased the LORD: wherefore he slew him also.
Some readers take this to mean that contraception that “spills the seed,” i.e., any barrier method, is forbidden. Some readers understand it as a condemnation of any contraceptive measure.
I believe that much opposition to contraception comes from the exhortation to “Be fruitful and multiply.” Some readers understand this to be an absolute command which contraindicates any form of contraception.
I think that this is refering to the idea that “forming” implies incompleteness, as opposed to the completeness of “formed”.
Ah. Points taken. I was not seeing the reference in that light. I understand now.
Of course you can read Onan’s sin as being stepping out of his obligation to provide a child for his dead brother. Nothing to do with masturbation or contraception in general, more to do with the fact that Onan married Tamar specifically for the purpose of providing children to carry on his brother’s line.
By deliberately not fulfilling his part of the bargain he had entered into by marrying Tamar, he pissed off God.
The key bit is “Onan knew the seed should not be his” and that he did what he did “lest he should give seed to his brother”- i.e. he was stealing his brother’s chance of having an heir.
Also, the verse about Jeremiah is exactly that- a verse about Jeremiah, we don’t know if it is applicable to anyone else.
AFAIK the prevailing understanding in Judaism is that souls are eternal, i.e. they have existed from creation, but that they only enter the body with the first breath, meaning that a foetus has no soul and isn’t a person (that doesn’t mean Judaisim is in favour of abortion, merely that the personhood of the foetus isn’t a deciding factor). If I’m wrong, could someone correct me please?
Slighty off OP
I couldn’t find any passages in Joshua where God commanded that the babies be cut from the mother’s whom. Anyone have a specific passage for that? There’s plenty of killing though. Kill everything living. Men woman and children and all the animals too. Gee. God was really pissed.
Based on the passages we looked at I can’t see how Christians condem abortion for everyone and want to remove that choice completely. I understand it as an emotional response but it infiriates me when people like Pat Robertson claim to know what God thinks about the subject. Based on what?
My bible has this
Which can be read in an entirely different way.
If men fight, and hurt a pregnant woman, so that she has premature delivery, and the child lives: he should still be punished according to the woman’s husband will warrant, or a judge decides. But if the baby dies, then it is life for a life.
Uhg, making an argument based on the bible is so biased on translation, and what we want to make it. Using it to argue for or against abortion is useless IMHO.
To use it to argue against abortion, you might as well use it to make women subservient to men, use the rod on the children etc.
Time’s have changed as many people like myself accept. Along with the changes, comes different views. I can be against abortion, and make it known I am against abortion, but not push it onto others because if God wanted to punish those who get abortions, it is within his Power, not mine. It is a woman’s choice to get an abortion, yet I am personally against abortion, and yet I would vote for a woman’s right to choose. I live my life, chose who to start my family with based on shared beliefs, and will continue to live my life how I believe the Lord wants me to live. But doing that, does not make me a preacher, to try to hoist my beliefs onto others who do not already share my views, and do not wish to share my views.
Make any sort of sense? Probably not, but it is how I live my life.