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All of those examples that you reference pertain to accidental and therapeutic abortions, which as I stated, is where the issue gets "muddy" in Jewish thought. None of them refer to elective abortions, which is where it was uniformly considered a sin and in most cases murder.
A perfect example of this important difference is found in the writings of Josephus. In his writings to Apion, he wrote of elective abortions as follows: “The law, moreover enjoins us to bring up all our offspring, and forbids women to cause abortion of what is begotten, or to destroy it afterward; and if any woman appears to have so done, she will be a murderer of her child, by destroying a living creature, and diminishing humankind…"
Whereas in Antiquities he wrote concerning an accidental abortion: "He that kicks a woman with child, so that the woman miscarry, let him pay a fine in money as the judges shall determine, as having diminished the multitude by the destruction of what was in her womb; and let money also be given the woman’s husband by him that kicked her; but if she die of the stroke, let him also be put to death, the law judging it equitable that life should go for life.”
There is no document that we have from pre-Talmudic or Talmudic Judaism that suggests elective abortions as anything other than a violation of Torah.
Edit: I'm curious about your statement that the LXX's translation of Exodus referring to harm of the fetus rather than the mother is not supported by pre-Greek sources. What are those sources? The Hebrew of Exodus 21 is unclear as to whether it refers to the pregnant mother or the unborn child; and Jewish writings outside of the Tanakh that pre-date 3rd century BCE are rare. Personally, I'm not aware of any that discussion abortion in any form, but would be glad to look at them if you know what they are.
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Religion aside, the killing of a being that could still survive if removed from the womb is tantamount is murder...period. Fuck that "reproductive rights" shit. No one can tell a woman, "You will get pregnant", or, "You will not get pregnant". That is solely her choice. However, once pregnant and once the fetus has reached a certain stage of development then she should have no choice in "terminating" the pregnancy other than by giving birth. Aborting a baby at, say, eight months, is no different than killing it postpartum.
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What's the name of the new film about V.D. that they're showing to 1st graders???
See Dick Run.
See Dick Run.
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Muck
Enjoy Every Sandwich
Josephus' opinions are his own they are no more representative of 1st century Rabbinic law than Mili's last outburst is of 21st century American court opinion.
The issue isn't 'muddy' in Jewish thought. The Torah, Talmud & Rabbinic writings are pretty consistent in the view that a fetus is not a person until after birth. One of the examples I specifically cited isn't even related to abortion, it relates to ritual purity for the consumption of the heave offering (terumah).
Jewish tradition is clear that a fetus is not a person. It also holds that a woman is not technically pregnant until the 5th or 6th week.
Yes Josephus had a personal opinion on the topic. He was not however a Rabbit* and his opinion is not reflected in the Talmud. He is also a non-factor from the Jewish standpoint. He is only mentioned once in later Rabbinic writings (by Rafi) & even then it is obliquely. You would have been better served by quoting Philo.
Edit: * Nor was he a Rabbi
There is no document that discusses the matter directly at all, but the documents that are available are in agreement that a fetus is not a person.
That is the relevant point. We know from the relevant writings & Jewish tradition that the fetus was not considered a living person. There are no writings with the Halakah that deal directly with a mother choosing to abort a child. Modern Jewish tradition is founded upon the historical position.
The reasonable assumption is not that abortion was considered to be murder.
This is the first time you have heard that the Hebrew word for 'harm' (ason) was translated as 'fully formed' (ἐξεικονισμένον)? *
You are unaware of a cornerstone issue behind the difference in how the fetus is viewed historically by the Catholic church & Judaism? This is the absolute first time you have heard of something that has a continuous legacy in Rabbinic literature for more than 2,000 years?
This is one of the most important points that always comes up in the discussion from the Jewish point of view. There are papers written by Christian apologists claiming the Greek translation 'got it right' (those silly Jews & their incorrect Hebrew).
* Your post has it backwards as the Greek translation is where the damage was moved from the mother to the fetus.
The issue isn't 'muddy' in Jewish thought. The Torah, Talmud & Rabbinic writings are pretty consistent in the view that a fetus is not a person until after birth. One of the examples I specifically cited isn't even related to abortion, it relates to ritual purity for the consumption of the heave offering (terumah).
Jewish tradition is clear that a fetus is not a person. It also holds that a woman is not technically pregnant until the 5th or 6th week.
Yes Josephus had a personal opinion on the topic. He was not however a Rabbit* and his opinion is not reflected in the Talmud. He is also a non-factor from the Jewish standpoint. He is only mentioned once in later Rabbinic writings (by Rafi) & even then it is obliquely. You would have been better served by quoting Philo.
Edit: * Nor was he a Rabbi
There is no document that discusses the matter directly at all, but the documents that are available are in agreement that a fetus is not a person.
That is the relevant point. We know from the relevant writings & Jewish tradition that the fetus was not considered a living person. There are no writings with the Halakah that deal directly with a mother choosing to abort a child. Modern Jewish tradition is founded upon the historical position.
The reasonable assumption is not that abortion was considered to be murder.
This is the first time you have heard that the Hebrew word for 'harm' (ason) was translated as 'fully formed' (ἐξεικονισμένον)? *
You are unaware of a cornerstone issue behind the difference in how the fetus is viewed historically by the Catholic church & Judaism? This is the absolute first time you have heard of something that has a continuous legacy in Rabbinic literature for more than 2,000 years?
This is one of the most important points that always comes up in the discussion from the Jewish point of view. There are papers written by Christian apologists claiming the Greek translation 'got it right' (those silly Jews & their incorrect Hebrew).
* Your post has it backwards as the Greek translation is where the damage was moved from the mother to the fetus.
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Muck
Enjoy Every Sandwich
Abortion in Judaism - David Schiff
Abortion in Jewish Law - Rachel Biale
Birth Control in Jewish Law: Marital Relations, Contraception, and Abortion as set Forth in the Classic Texts of Jewish Law - David Michael Feldman
When Life is in the Balance: Life and Death Decisions in the Light of the Jewish Tradition - Barry D. Cytron, Earl Schwartz
Law and Theology in Judaism - David Novak
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So, because my religious beliefs teach that the rape of a woman as wrong, it would create a Constitutional conflict to advocate for laws against rape?
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Hi Muck,
I've been debating whether or not it is worth responding as I found some of your own responses to be odd in a way that either suggests you don't understand what I wrote or you are intentionally misconstruing it to fit your argument. I'm not sure which it is, so I'll assume the benign and try to give a better explanation.
My use of Josephus' two quotes that on the surface appear contradictory was not used as a definitive statement of what 1st century Rabbinic law taught (as an aside, calling anything rabbinic in the first century is problematic since rabbinic authority only started to form c. 90 CE and didn't become fully established until c. 200 CE); rather, it was meant as an example from a Pharisaic source of how elective abortion was viewed very differently from accidental or therapeutic abortions. I know of no source from the sixth century (completion of the Talmud) or earlier in Judaism--and I would be surprised if there was any source in Judaism prior to at least the 18th century--that didn't look at elective abortions completely different and as a violation of Torah. If you can provide one, I would be glad to look at it.
I don't know how familiar you are with Jewish writings or Talmud, but almost everything is muddy (hence the joke: two rabbis, three opinions). In fact, when one reads Talmud, one rarely get a definitive answer to any question raised. Instead, one is given multiple opinions, some in agreement, some in consent, and some in disagreement. It is then left to the local rabbinic authority to apply the law based on these multiple arguments. Anyway, none of that is to deny that the rabbis post-200 CE (when the earliest parts of the Talmud were redacted into what we have now) weren't primarily in agreement on the legal status of a fetus when it came to accidental or therapeutic abortions. However, this does not change or alter the reality that nowhere in Talmudic or pre-Talmudic Judaism do you find the condoning of elective abortions at any status of fetal development.
Again, the use of Josephus was to illustrate the difference between types of abortions in first century Jewish thought. When looking at first century Judaism, it is anachronistic to speak of rabbinic Judaism in the sense of what it became once the Mishna was redacted (c. 200 CE). First century Judaism was much more fractured. Yet, across all of them, you find no source that condones elective abortion and several that call or infer it as murder.
Except, there are Jewish writings pre-Talmud that view elective abortion as murder, which reasonably suggests that the debates around the definition of a fetus were limited to accidental and therapeutic abortions and in the case you mentioned from Yevamot 69b, ritual purity of the daughters of the Levites. Those calling it a violation of the law other than Josephus, are the Sibylline Oracles (c. 1st century BCE) and Pseudo-Phocylides (c. 50 BCE-50CE). Although these are only three sources, they are in contrast to the lack of any sources that condone elective abortions.
I'm not sure why you think this is the first time I've heard of the issue around "harm" in the LXX's translation of Exodus 21. I said nothing that suggests that. In addition, I don't think you truly understand the timing of the documents to which you are referencing.
The issue is that the LXX was translated by Jewish sages in the 3rd century BCE. Thus, their decision to render "harm" in the Greek as pertaining to the fetus reflects a form of Jewish thought at that time. This happens to be, as far as I know, the earliest indication of Jewish thought on the issue of abortion in any form. The reason this is so is that the Hebrew does not grammatically indicate whether the verb for harm refers to the pregnant woman, the fetus, or both (the later is the accepted understanding of Karaite Jews). The Hebrew text leaves it up to interpretation, which the Jewish translators obviously understood as pertaining to the fetus. The understanding in rabbinic Judaism that it refers to the mother appears in the Talmud, which again, did not begin to take form until 200 CE, a good five centuries after the LXX was translated. And while the interpretations given in the Talmud likely reflect earlier understandings, it is impossible to know how far back that interpretation goes since there is a lack of earlier sources supporting it, at least as far as I know--I admit that I have checked the early Targums on Exodus.
So, when you assert that the Greek translation of the LXX doesn't agree with how Judaism understood it as demonstrated in Talmud, you are creating an anachronism because you are using a source that it at least 500 years older than the translation to make your assertion. That is why I asked if you knew of a pre-Greek source, meaning a pre-3rd century BCE Jewish writing, that supported what became the rabbinic understanding of the verse.
I've been debating whether or not it is worth responding as I found some of your own responses to be odd in a way that either suggests you don't understand what I wrote or you are intentionally misconstruing it to fit your argument. I'm not sure which it is, so I'll assume the benign and try to give a better explanation.
My use of Josephus' two quotes that on the surface appear contradictory was not used as a definitive statement of what 1st century Rabbinic law taught (as an aside, calling anything rabbinic in the first century is problematic since rabbinic authority only started to form c. 90 CE and didn't become fully established until c. 200 CE); rather, it was meant as an example from a Pharisaic source of how elective abortion was viewed very differently from accidental or therapeutic abortions. I know of no source from the sixth century (completion of the Talmud) or earlier in Judaism--and I would be surprised if there was any source in Judaism prior to at least the 18th century--that didn't look at elective abortions completely different and as a violation of Torah. If you can provide one, I would be glad to look at it.
I don't know how familiar you are with Jewish writings or Talmud, but almost everything is muddy (hence the joke: two rabbis, three opinions). In fact, when one reads Talmud, one rarely get a definitive answer to any question raised. Instead, one is given multiple opinions, some in agreement, some in consent, and some in disagreement. It is then left to the local rabbinic authority to apply the law based on these multiple arguments. Anyway, none of that is to deny that the rabbis post-200 CE (when the earliest parts of the Talmud were redacted into what we have now) weren't primarily in agreement on the legal status of a fetus when it came to accidental or therapeutic abortions. However, this does not change or alter the reality that nowhere in Talmudic or pre-Talmudic Judaism do you find the condoning of elective abortions at any status of fetal development.
Again, the use of Josephus was to illustrate the difference between types of abortions in first century Jewish thought. When looking at first century Judaism, it is anachronistic to speak of rabbinic Judaism in the sense of what it became once the Mishna was redacted (c. 200 CE). First century Judaism was much more fractured. Yet, across all of them, you find no source that condones elective abortion and several that call or infer it as murder.
Except, there are Jewish writings pre-Talmud that view elective abortion as murder, which reasonably suggests that the debates around the definition of a fetus were limited to accidental and therapeutic abortions and in the case you mentioned from Yevamot 69b, ritual purity of the daughters of the Levites. Those calling it a violation of the law other than Josephus, are the Sibylline Oracles (c. 1st century BCE) and Pseudo-Phocylides (c. 50 BCE-50CE). Although these are only three sources, they are in contrast to the lack of any sources that condone elective abortions.
I'm not sure why you think this is the first time I've heard of the issue around "harm" in the LXX's translation of Exodus 21. I said nothing that suggests that. In addition, I don't think you truly understand the timing of the documents to which you are referencing.
The issue is that the LXX was translated by Jewish sages in the 3rd century BCE. Thus, their decision to render "harm" in the Greek as pertaining to the fetus reflects a form of Jewish thought at that time. This happens to be, as far as I know, the earliest indication of Jewish thought on the issue of abortion in any form. The reason this is so is that the Hebrew does not grammatically indicate whether the verb for harm refers to the pregnant woman, the fetus, or both (the later is the accepted understanding of Karaite Jews). The Hebrew text leaves it up to interpretation, which the Jewish translators obviously understood as pertaining to the fetus. The understanding in rabbinic Judaism that it refers to the mother appears in the Talmud, which again, did not begin to take form until 200 CE, a good five centuries after the LXX was translated. And while the interpretations given in the Talmud likely reflect earlier understandings, it is impossible to know how far back that interpretation goes since there is a lack of earlier sources supporting it, at least as far as I know--I admit that I have checked the early Targums on Exodus.
So, when you assert that the Greek translation of the LXX doesn't agree with how Judaism understood it as demonstrated in Talmud, you are creating an anachronism because you are using a source that it at least 500 years older than the translation to make your assertion. That is why I asked if you knew of a pre-Greek source, meaning a pre-3rd century BCE Jewish writing, that supported what became the rabbinic understanding of the verse.
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Based on your reading of them, which one do you recommend? If you will read Gorman's book that I recommend, I will read yours.
Edit: Based on a review I just read for Schiff, I think that is the one I would like to read.
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