Capital Confusion

BySkip Moen, Ph.D.

“Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God He made man.  Genesis 9:6  NASB

By – Is abortion murder?  That’s the rabbinic concern with the translation of this verse.  Oh, you thought this verse was about a court determining the basis of capital punishment.  But that’s because you’re reading a translation of the ambiguous Hebrew.  You see, in Hebrew the word translated “by” is really just the letter bet attached to the word for man (ʾādām).  The problem is this:  “ . . . the prepositional letter bet can have a locational sense (‘a human in a human, he shall have his blood shed’), or an instrumental sense (‘a human, by means of a human he shall have his blood shed’).”[1]

Heschel comments:

“Along came  Rabbi Ishmael and suggested, that even in the case of fetuses in their mothers’ wombs, one is liable for shedding their blood, for it is written: ‘Whoever shed the blood of a human, in a human . . .’ ‘What sort of a human is in a human? You must say it is a fetus in its mother’s womb.’”[2]

Most of the Western translations of the Bible adopt the instrumental sense of the bet, yielding the usual prooftext for capital punishment.  But, as you now know, this verse might just be a prohibition of abortion, not simply murder of a human being after birth.  Because the translation does not retain the ambiguity of the Hebrew, the possibility that this applies directly to the situation of abortion is lost.  And we go merrily on our way.  If we read the text in Hebrew, we would be aware that both translations are valid and both translations could be intended.  That would mean that even before the Mosaic code the Bible contains an explicit prohibition of abortion, since the verse could be read a different way.

Is abortion murder?  Well, how do you understand the term ba- ʾādām)?  This verse implies that the fetus is in the image of God and that taking the life of the fetus requires a life as repayment.  You might want to treat the bet as instrumental, but the other possibility is always there.  So, you’d better be sure, right?  God is watching.

Topical Index:  abortion, bet, Genesis 9:6

[1] Gordon Tucker, in Abraham Heschel, Heavenly Torah as Refracted through the Generations (ed. and trans. by Gordon Tucker, Continuum International Publishing Group, New York, 2007), p. 38, fn. 133.

[2] Abraham Heschel, Heavenly Torah as Refracted through the Generations, p. 38.