Planned Parenthood 1952 pamphlet

The Bible & Abortion

A Matter of Life & Death

“To remain ignorant of history is to remain always a child.”

Cicero

1.     “Church Fathers”:

210 AD, Tertulian, The Soul 25: “[The doctors who performed abortions] all knew well enough that a living being had been conceived…”

374 AD, Basil the Great, 1st Canonical Letter, canon 8: “The man, or woman, is a murderer…who takes medicines to procure abortion.”

390 AD, Jerome, Hexameron, 5.18.58: “The rich…so that their wealth will not be more divided, deny their children in the womb & with all the force of parricide, they kill [them.]”

400 AD, John Chrysostom, Homily 24 on Romans: “Why then do you abuse the gift of God, & fight with His laws, & follow after what is a curse as if a blessing, & make the chamber of procreation a chamber for murder, & arm the woman that was given for childbearing unto slaughter?”

430 AD, Augustine of Hippo, Enchiridion 23.86: “To deny that the young who are cut out limb by limb from the womb…have never been alive, seems too audacious.”

2.     Other witnesses:

74 AD The Letter of Barnabas 19: “You will not kill a child by abortion, nor kill that which is begotten.”

150 AD, Didache 5.1-2: “The Way of Death is filled with people who are…murderers of children & abortionists of God's creatures.”

170 AD Mark Felix, Octavius 30: “There are some women among you who by drinking special potions extinguish the life of the future human in their very bowels, thus committing murder before they even give birth.”

177 AD Athenagoras, A Plea For the Christians 35: “[When] we say that those women who use drugs to bring on abortion commit murder, and will have to give an account to God for the abortion, on what principle should we commit murder? For it does not belong to the same person to regard the very fetus in the womb as a created being, and therefore an object of God’s care, and when it has passed into life, to kill it.”

3.     Ecumenical Councils:

Elvira, 303-306 AD: “If a woman conceives in adultery & then has an abortion, she may not commune again, even as death approaches, because she has sinned twice” (Canon 63).

Ancyra, 314 AD: “Concerning women who commit fornication, & destroy that which they have conceived, or employed in making drugs for abortion, a former decree excluded them until the hour of death, & to this some have assented. Nevertheless, being desirous to use somewhat greater lenity, we have ordained that they fulfill 10 years [of penance], according to the prescribed degrees” (Canon 21).

Trullo, 692 AD: “[The woman] who purposely destroys the fetus, shall suffer the punishment of murder. And we pay no attention to the subtle distinction as to whether the fetus was formed or unformed.”

The Road to Roe v Wade (Jan 22, 1973) Timeline

1968, Christianity Today, selectively quoted Bruce Waltke:

“God does not regard the fetus as a soul no matter how far gestation has progressed….Clearly, then, in contrast to the mother, the fetus is not reckoned as a soul.”

1970, Jun. Christian Medical Society, A Protestant Affirmation on the Control of Human Reproduction: “The method of preventing pregnancy is not so much a religious as a scientific and medical question to be determined in consultation with one's physician.”

1971, Jun. Southern Baptist Convention:

“We call upon Southern Baptists to work for legislation that will allow the possibility of abortion under such conditions as rape, incest, clear evidence of severe fetal deformity, & carefully ascertained evidence of the likelihood of damage to the emotional, mental, and physical health of the mother.”

1973, W.A. Criswell, after Roe v Wade ruling:

“I have always felt that it was only after a child was born & had a life separate from its mother that it became an individual person, & it has always, therefore, seemed to me that what is best for the mother & for the future should be allowed.”

2016, Presidential Election:

80%+ of “white Evangelicals” voted for Trump. Why?

Nov. LifeWay Research poll, the most important issue: Abortion 4%; 10% among pastors!

Shaliach: The Jewish Law of Agency

The Encyclopedia of the Jewish Religion, R.J.Z. Werblowsky, G. Wigoder, 1986, p. 15.

Agent (Heb. Shaliah): The main point of the Jewish law of agency is expressed in the dictum, “a person’s agent is regarded as the person himself” (Ned. 72B; Kidd, 41b). Therefore any act committed by a duly appointed agent is regarded as having been committed by the principal, who therefore bears full responsibility for it with consequent complete absence of liability on the part of the agent.

The IVP Bible Background Commentary New Testament, Craig S. Keener on John 5:30. 

Jesus is thus a faithful shaliach, or agent; Jewish law taught that the man’s agent was as a man himself (backed by his full authority), to the extent that the agent faithfully represented him. Moses and the Old Testament prophets were sometimes viewed as God’s agents.

Dictionary of the Later New Testament & Its Developments, eds. Martin, Davids, “Christianity and Judaism: Partings of The Ways”, 3.2. Johannine Christology.

Johannine christology appears to have been fashioned from Jewish wisdom ideas and the related concept of the shaliach (lit. “one who is sent” from heaven; shaliach in Hebrew, apostolos in Greek). Shaliach and wisdom ideas were easily exploited by first-century Christians who were trying to explain to themselves and to others who Jesus was and what was the nature of his relationship to God. In the Fourth Gospel Jesus is presented as the Word that became flesh (Jn 1:1, 14). The function of the Johannine “Word” (logos) approximates that of Wisdom, which in biblical and postbiblical traditions is sometimes personified (Prov 8:1–9:6; Sir 24:1–34; one should note that in Sir 24:3, Wisdom is identified as the word that proceeds from God’s mouth). As God’s shaliach (see Jn 13:16; 17:3; cf. Mt 15:24; Lk 4:18, 43; Heb 3:1) Jesus is able to reveal the Father (Jn 14:9: “He who has seen me has seen the father”) and complete his “work” on earth (Jn 17:4: “I have accomplished the work which you gave me to do”)…..

In three passages Jesus is accused of blaspheming for claiming divine privilege and prerogatives. In the first passage Jesus supposedly breaks the sabbath by healing a man and then intensifies the ensuing controversy by referring to God as his Father (Jn 5:16–18). Jesus’ critics infer from this claim that Jesus has made himself “equal with God.” The second passage is similar. In it Jesus affirms, “I and the Father are one” (Jn 10:30). His critics take up stones to stone him, because, athough only a human, Jesus has made himself God. But the meaning here is probably not that Jesus has literally claimed to be God. The claim to be one with God probably relates to the shaliach concept. As God’s representative, sent to do God’s work, Jesus can claim that he is “one” with the Father.

R.A. Johnson, The One and the Many in the Israelite Conception of God, quoted by Juan Baixeras, “The Blasphemy of Jesus of Nazareth.”

“In Hebrew thought a patriarch’s personality extended through his entire household to his wives, his sons and their wives, his daughters, servants in his household and even in some sense his property...In a specialized sense when the patriarch as lord of his household deputized his trusted servant as his malak (his messenger or angel) the man was endowed with the authority and resources of his lord to represent him fully and transact business in his name. In Semitic thought this messenger-representative was conceived of as being personally — and in his very words — the presence of the sender.”

“Origin & Early History of the Apostolic Office,” T. Korteweg, in The Apostolic Age in Patristic Thought, ed. Hilhorst, p 6f.

The origin of the apostolic office lies not in the juridical or civic Jewish institution as such but in the concept on which it is based, the idea expressed, for example in Mishnah Berakhot 5.5: ‘a man’s agent is like to himself.’ [This Jewish principle of agency is] the nucleus not only of the Jewish designation of shaliach, but also of the Christian apostolate as we find it in the NT….behind the Christian terminology is not primarily the functional aspect of being sent on a mission, connected with the Greek word [apostolos], but the specific Semitic and Jewish concept of representative authority which is implied in the designation of shaliach….As a matter of fact, St Paul’s letters are the only early document from which a reconstruction of apostolic self-consciousness seems at all possible [i.e.,] God or Christ is speaking through his mouth [1Thess 2.13; 2Cor 5.20; 13.3], like the prophet Jeremiah he is given authority to build up and destroy [2Cor 10.8; 13.10; and Gal 4.14]. Of course, this is reminiscent of [Matt 10.40; Luke 10.16. [In the OT] the Hebrew verb shalach is regularly used for the sending of prophets and the normal rendering of shalach in the Septuagint is apostellein [cp. Mat 23.34ff.]