Guidelines for Biblical Interpretation
As a center we receive requests for information regarding key biblical passages in the abortion debate. While the list of these passages is fairly fixed, debate continues regarding matters of Hebrew translation and interpretation, how various genres of biblical texts should be used for ethical decision-making, and the implications of this for a nuanced and robust pro-life stance. Thus, in an effort to meet this need, I will interact with some of these key passages and provide principles for interpretation along with exegetical analysis. In order to do so in any substantive sense, this topic will be broken into two pieces. In this first one, I will provide some general hermeneutical guidelines and investigate Exodus 21:22–25 as an example of ethical discernment from biblical law. A later essay will explore example passages from poetic and narrative literature.
First, let me state that the principles one employs to interpret Scripture (hermeneutics) matter greatly in the discussion of abortion. As you’ll notice from a list of the biblical passages used either in support of or against abortion,[1] both sides can find texts to back up their claims. This is partially due to the use of a combination of proof-texting and biblicism.
Proof-texting is putting the proverbial cart before the horse; it’s deciding the answer you want from the biblical text and then taking biblical passages out of context to support one’s preconceived biases. The greatest piece of advice I can give the Christian advocate of the unborn is to practice interpretational integrity. If you take biblical passages out of context to support your claims, so can those supporting a pro-choice stance. Further, proof-texting might be a way to win arguments, but it often leads to theologically malnourished conclusions. Building a contextualized and whole-Bible-informed understanding of any given issue allows for developing not just rules but wisdom and virtue.
Also, recognize that all truth is God’s truth. Don’t be afraid of theological, philosophical, and scientific arguments that may more directly address concerns with beginning-of-life issues. Abortion was a known practice in the Ancient Near East. Yet, there’s no direct discussion either for or against its practice in Scripture. Such silence can be a secondary point supporting the protection of the unborn;[2] however, don’t be afraid to let Scripture direct toward a robust theological anthropology defending the sanctity of human life and let science complement this with evidence of human life from conception.
Biblicism, as Dennis Hollinger defines it, refers to the reality that “evangelical ethics has tended to draw the content and style of ethical reflection directly from biblical statements, particularly imperative ones,”[3] resulting in the misuse of many of the genres of Scripture and a preference for biblical commands.[4] I also believe such biblicism results from overemphasizing deontological ethics—the determining of what is right based on a list of rules. By this alone,[5] Scripture becomes merely a repository of distanced and disconnected rules we obey. Further, while deontological ethics is not reducible to prohibitions, many within the Christian world tend to elevate this element of the approach, forming their Christian identity around a list of things we don’t do as believers. Instead, we should see Scripture as revelatory of the God who created the world and invites us into whole-person formation in response to his life, character, and acts. In this, our Christian identity is built upon not just what Christ has saved us from but what he has saved us for. By Christ’s death and resurrection, we’re invited into becoming truly human—to be freed from the power of sin and death to pursue rightly ordered loves. With that said, in this first part, I now turn to a typical “abortion passage” in biblical law and explore what we can glean from it for a whole-life pro-life stance.
Covenant Worked Out in Culture: Biblical Law
As Hollinger highlights, imperative biblical statements most influence our Christian ethics. Within the Old Testament, these are commonly cases of biblical law. Ethical discernment based on such law is good but must also be done carefully. Because the statements are already commands, it’s easy to think that a one-to-one application can be made between biblical rules and modern ethics. However, as Jesus clarified and Paul echoed, the telos of the law can be summed up in the love of God and neighbor (Matt 22:37–40; Gal 5:13–15). Indeed, this evidences why Jesus teaches that much of the law is actually more demanding than one might think.[6] Whereas the law prohibits murder, Jesus clarifies that to fulfill this, one must not even hate a brother (Matt 5:21–22). While the law protects against adultery, to truly love one’s spouse (and one’s neighbor), one must not even lust after a person outside of the marriage (vv. 27–28). In all this, Jesus exhorts the people to have a righteousness greater than that of the pharisees (vv. 17–20). This group created a system of human regulations as a fence around the law, forming thousands of rules meant to keep one from ever coming close to even touching disobedience. Yet, in this, they missed that the true telos of the law was love.
Thus, we must see Old Testament law as a guide toward the love of God and humankind. Since this is its true aim, this also means that the law accommodates the needs of the biblical audience in its original time and culture. As an example of this, accommodations are made for the possibility of divorce in Deuteronomic law (Deut 24:1). Yet, Jesus clarifies that such a provision was due to the hardness of the people’s hearts (Matt 19:8–9). Thus, the ethical value embedded in this is the protection of vulnerable parties, not the determination of divorce as a moral good.[7] With the whole law, we must consider both its aim given its original historical and literary context and its larger theological context, including both Old and New Testaments.
With that said, the most common biblical law cited in the abortion debate is Exodus 21:22–25:
And if men fight and they strike a pregnant woman so that her children[8] come out, but there is no severe harm,[9] he shall surely be fined according to what the woman’s husband sets on him, and he will give as the judges (decide). But if there is severe harm, then you will give a life for a life, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a hand, a foot for a foot, a burn for burn, a wound for a wound, a bruise for a bruise.[10]
This is also the text regarding which the Center most frequently receives requests for information. The reason for this is that both the pro-life and pro-choice sides use this passage.
In its context, Exodus 21 is part of what is known as the Covenant Code (Exod 21–23), which provides legal regulations as extensions of the Ten Commandments. These reflected the everyday legal proceedings of the Israelite people, but they were not fixed. Indeed, the three parallel law collections (Exod 21–23, Lev 17–27, and Deut 12–26) evidence progression in judicial practices throughout Israel’s history.[11] This reveals that, while adherence to the law was indeed a matter of worship and faithfulness to YHWH, [12] the core commands of the Ten Commandments could be worked out differently according to the developing needs of the people. Thus, once again, we should be cautious to put too much theological weight on individual laws alone but discern their true aim given the circumstances of the Israelite people and consideration of the whole of Old Testament law and New Testament ethical exhortations.
Central to the debate in Exodus 21 is the Hebrew verb yatza, whether it denotes a miscarriage, and the object of the phrase “there is no severe harm.” If each of these elements point towards the death of the baby and a lack of harm to the mother, and a mere fine is charged for this loss, then the pro-choice argument is that the “life for life” retribution divulged later would apply only if the mother was severely wounded. Thus, in their assertion, this would prioritize the life of the mother over the unborn child and reduce the unborn to mere property.
Indeed, several medieval Jewish scholars (e.g., Rashi, Abraham ibn Ezra) translate yatza as “miscarriage,” which is why some assert that the Jewish position was “pro-abortion.” [13] However, this term merely being a general reference to something “coming out,” it is predominately used for living things (e.g., Gen 1:24, 25:25–26; Jer 1:5) and only used for a stillborn baby once (Num 12:12), in which case other contextual cues guide towards the interpretation of a miscarriage.[14] Further, should the author of Exodus have wanted to communicate a miscarriage clearly, more specific Hebrew terms could have been used (e.g., nephel).[15]
Without an assumption of yatza denoting a miscarriage, the text becomes problematic for the pro-choice side. Hebrew being a language with grammatical gender, the term for “child(ren)” is masculine, and “pregnant woman” is feminine. The verb used in the sentence denoting a lack of harm is masculine. Thus, the most intuitive translation of this phrase is either “he is not harmed” (in reference to the child) or “there is no harm,” denoting that neither the mother nor child have been fatally wounded. Based on the context, I believe the second translation is the most likely.[16] Thus, the equal retribution principle (“life for life”) of verses 23–25 would apply to severe or fatal harm caused to either the mother or the child.
So, what can we glean from Exodus 21:22–25? The presence of the equal retribution principle in application to both the mother and child evidences that ancient Hebrew law considered the fetus worthy of legal protection. It, therefore, extended the sixth commandment (Exod 20:13) to the unborn child. Further, the use of the “life for life” principle is a call for equal justice to be executed for all, whether one had the financial or social means to procure a reduced sentence (e.g., tooth for a life) or the lack thereof (e.g., a life for a tooth).[17] Since this principle also applied to the mother, the passage offers a much larger commentary on the protection of innocent life generally. It evidences that the love of God and humankind requires a system of impartiality in which the rich do not escape retribution and the poor are not deprived of justice, whether that be mother or child.
How can this passage inform our modern-day pro-life ethics? First, it should challenge our culture wars approach to the abortion debate. By fighting an ideological battle, some on the pro-life side so desperately want to keep the sway away from pro-choice arguments that the fight becomes one of pro-baby vs. pro-mother. The same is true for those on the pro-choice side. A biblical ethic should guide us toward the love of both mother and child and toward a desire to protect the human dignity of both. This is the whole-life pro-life stance the biblical text points us toward.
Second, if Jesus exemplified that honoring the true telos of biblical commands often requires more from us than merely obeying the letter of the law, we must ask how we can do so with this passage. Indeed, Exodus 21 prohibits the killing of both mother and child, along with the distortion of justice via wealth or other means. However, are there ways we have allowed hatred to make its way into our stance toward either party? Especially for those on the pro-life side, have we allowed hatred for the abortion-vulnerable mother to make its way into our hearts? Thus, overall, we should pursue initiatives and policies that do more than merely prohibit the taking of unborn life, which indeed we’re against, but we should also promote the practice of love, mercy, and generosity for the abortion-vulnerable woman. In other words, we must also practice what we’re for.
References
[1] Passages used either in support for, or in opposition to, abortion include Genesis 1:27, 9:6; Exodus 20:13, 21:22–25, 22:2–3; Leviticus 7:14, 18:21, 20:1–5, 24:17, 27:3–7; Numbers 5:24–27; Deuteronomy 5:17, 12:31, 28:53, 30:19; Job 3:16, 31:15; Psalm 8:4–5, 22:9–10, 51:5, 71:6, 127:3–4, 137:9, 139:13–16; Proverbs 6:16–19; Isaiah 44:2, 49:1; Ecclesiastes 11:5; Jeremiah 1:5, 20:14–17; Matthew 18:14, 24:19; Luke 1:41–44, 17:2; Galatians 1:15–16; James 1:27; Revelation 21:4.
[2] While it is an “argument from absence,” it is notable that Egyptian texts (for instance, the Ebers Papyrus from c. 1550 BCE) provide directions for how to perform an abortion. Despite this being the context within which the Israelites would have been shaped during the pre-Exodus era, such directives are nowhere to be found in the protestant canon. Furthermore, early Jewish literature, such as the Jewish-Hellenistic sapiential poem Sentences of Pseudo-Phocylides, directly prohibits the destruction of an unborn baby. James K. Hoffmeir asserts that abortion proper was simply not the main concern for the Israelites since child sacrifice used as a kind of population control (and therefore a form of abortion) would have been much more common given their context. See James K. Hoffmeier, Abortion: A Christian Understanding and Response, (Baker Book House, 1987), 61–62. Thus, we can conclude that biblical authors did not actively support abortion when they could have, prohibited more common practices that likely functioned as a kind of quasi-abortion, and at least some ancient Jewish sources prohibited it.
[3] Dennis Hollinger, “Can Bioethics Be Evangelical?” The Journal of Religious Ethics 17, no. 2 (1989): 162, https://www.jstor.org/stable/40017822.
[4] Hollinger, “Can Bioethics Be Evangelical?” 162–63.
[5] Integrating deontological and virtue ethics is the most balanced approach and represents how Scripture often talks about moral formation and decision-making. If you would like to read a fuller discussion of my viewpoint, see “Equipped for Every Good Work: The Use of Scripture in Bioethical Decision Making” Dignitas 30, no. 1 (2023): 4–12, https://www.cbhd.org/dignitas-articles/equipped-for-every-good-work-the-use-of-scripture-in-bioethical-decision-making.
[6] The point here is that “more” encompasses whole-person engagement with biblical commands. Both hatred and lust are vices stemming from one’s character. Thus, the “more” in purview is heart engagement with biblical law. What is required to honor such laws is virtue development.
[7] For instance, Andrew Spurgeon argues that the use of Casuistic law (if/then situations) here provides protection for the woman in the situation without permitting divorce. In other words, if divorce occurs, here’s how to balance the scales for the vulnerable one in the situation. However, by the sheer existence of this law, it does not condone divorce as a moral good. See Andrew Spurgeon, “The Covenantal Protection of the Innocent: Deuteronomy 24:1–4,” Journal of Asian Evangelical Theology 24, no. 1 (2020): 21–40.
[8] The plural used here is likely to account for the possibility of more than one child in the womb.
[9] This Hebrew term for “harm” (ason) denotes that which is severe and often fatal. Thus, while harm may indeed occur to a prematurely born baby, the focus here is on whether a life is lost. Indeed, the fine charged for the baby born early may be to account for the extra medical attention required for a preemie.
[10] Author’s own translation.
[11] Richard Averbeck, The Old Testament Law for the Life of the Church: Reading the Torah in the Light of Christ (IVP, 2022), 145–46.
[12] For instance, Averbeck highlights the ritual worship frame and sabbatical frame that encapsulate the covenant code, evidencing that Israelite law was inherently a matter of worship. See Averbeck, The Old Testament Law for the Life of the Church, 156, 163.
[13] It is important to remember that Jewish scholars (even those a bit closer to biblical times) are just as capable of mistranslations and taking Torah passages out of context as Christians. Indeed, for both Rashi and Ibn Ezra, there is no contextual discussion of translating “yatza” as “miscarriage,” and both insert the idea of there being no “further harm” beyond the unintentional abortion when this is not native to the Hebrew text. To read their interpretation of this passage, you can find both Ibn Ezra’s and Rashi’s commentary on sefaria.org.
[14] Numbers 12:12 utilizes the metaphor of a stillborn to speak of the potential death of Miriam should she not be healed from leprosy. Through the use of repetition, Aaron beseeches Moses on Miriam's behalf, requesting, “Please do not let her be like a dead one who, when he comes out (yatza) of his mother’s womb, then half of his flesh has been eaten” (emphasis is that of the author’s).
[15] Greg Kukl, “What Exodus 21:22 Says About Abortion,” Stand to Reason, February 4, 2013, https://www.str.org/w/what-exodus-21-22-says-about-abortion#fn:11.
[16] The passage sits within a list of personal injury laws (21:12–36). Other passages discuss the consequences of intentional or unintentional harm caused to another adult. It would seem unlikely that this passage would only discuss the consequences for the one who injures the unborn child and not also the mother.
[17] Victor P. Hamilton, Exodus: An Exegetical Commentary (Baker Academic, 2011), 474.