Your interpretation of that passage is the one chosen by sources with the (relatively new, in the history of the church) no-abortion-even-pre-quickening agenda.
Would it not have been easy enough, and natural, to say, if you intended the meaning you choose, "if her fruit depart from her but lives...?"
The idea that the bringing on of an early menstrual flow (an early miscarriage) by accident in a fight would yield the punishment of death defies common sense and requires one know nothing about human nature.
Put yourself in the scenario, in that time or any other:
A man's wife has missed a period and vomits in the morning, so they know she is pregnant, though she doesn't yet show. There's a fight, and she, a bystander, is accidentally knocked down by one of the combatants. This brings on her period. Now, at this point, the husband may either 1) sue the guy and get financial compensation in an amount to be decided by judges, or 2) the community can kill the guy who accidentally brought on her period.
Cui bono under the second option? Nobody. It was an accident, which everyone in the community knows, and the result caused no harm ("mischief") to the woman, who can get pregnant again next month. The family of the distressed second guy who knocked the lady over is going to be left without support. He has friends who will be appalled at the absurdity of the situation, at the disparity between the two losses. The community is riven, and an accident turns into ongoing hostility between families or factions. No provision has even been made for the aggrieved husband and wife to "drop the charges" in case they would like to because they feel the penalty to be disproportionate, and don't want a generations-long feud to ensue.
Apply common sense and give me a break. These were people, not idiots. The law is to make society run smoothly, not nonsensically. Someone's interest is usually served by rules. In your interpretation, no one's is.
The fine, which goes to the husband, is obviously for a miscarriage. The punishment is if the woman dies-- OR, according to other scholars, if there is a child that dies.
But a "child" didn't mean a fertilized egg then any more than it does now (except, of course, for to ideology-hypnotized zealots.)
Here is an interesting discussion of that passage:
ibiblio.org |
