Notes to Chapter Four

1. Gerhard von Rad, commenting on Gen. 9:6, observes: "Attack on man's body is a violation of God's honor."

2. James 3:8-10

3. Cf. G.C. Berkouwer, Man: The Image of God, trans. Dirk Jellema (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1962), pp. 67-118, and Emil Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of Creation and Redemption, trans. Olive Wyon (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1952), pp. 75-78 for reviews of the various interpretations.

4. Cf. Berkouwer, Man, pp. 59, 93: "In all his relations and acts, he is never man-in-himself, but always man in relation, in relation to this history of God's deeds in creation, to this origin of an inalienable relation to his Creator. . . .if we seek to define man merely in terms of various qualities and abilities, we are not giving a biblical picture of man."

5. Cf. Joseph Fletcher, "Ethical Aspects of Genetic Controls," New England Journal of Medicine 285 (1971): 781.

6. Cf. Q.99 of the Westminster Larger Catechism: ". . .where a duty is commanded, the contrary sin is forbidden; and where a sin is forbidden, the contrary duty is commanded. . . ."

7. Cf. Q.135, Westminster Larger Catechism: "The duties required in the sixth commandment are: all careful studies, and lawful endeavors, to preserve the life of ourselves and others, by resisting all thoughts and purposes, subduing all passions, and avoiding all occasions, temptations, and practices, which tend to be unjust taking away the life of any. . . ."

8. Note the suggestion of Nobel Laureate James Watson on the matter of newborn children with severe birth defects: "If a child were not declared alive until three days after birth, then all parents could be allowed the choice. . . .the doctor could allow the child to die if the parents so choose and save a lot of misery and suffering." Cited by Dr. and Mrs. J.C. Willke, Handbook on Abortion (Cincinnati: Hayes, 1975:, p.113.

9. Edward R. Dalglish, Psalm Fify-One in the Light of Ancient Near Eastern Patternism (Leiden:E.J. Brill, 1962), p. 121.

10. Waltke, "Reflections from the Old Testament on Abortion," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 19, no. 1 (1976): 13; Dalglish, Psalm Fifty-One, pp.123, 124.

11. Dalglish, Psalm Fifty-One, p. 57.

12. Ibid., p. 124. Dalglish points out that the notion of the moral law as a natural endowment is found elsewhere in Rom.2:15, where Paul says of the Gentiles that "What the law requires is written on their hearts." Though the Gentiles do not have the law, on occasion they "do by nature what the law requires" (Rom.2:14). There the idea is clearly that man's moral sense is not merely the product of postnatal socialization, but is in some sense innate. Dalglish also points to an interesting Talmudic text, Nidda 30b, which is closely related to the proposed rendering of Ps. 51:6: "[The embryo] is also taught all the Torah from the beginning to end. . . . As soon as it sees the light, an angel approaches, slaps it on its mouth and causes it to forget all the Torah completely . . ." (p.125).

13. For similar retrospective references to prenatal development, cf. Job 10:8-12; 2 Macc.7:22,23. Eccles. 11:5 indicates the sense of wonder felt by the Hebrews in connection with God's creative activity in the womb.

14. Albert W. Liley, "The foetus in Control of His Environment," in Hilgers and Horan, eds., Abortion and Social Justice ( New York: Sheed and Ward, 1972), p. 29.

15. F. Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Book of Job, trans. F. Bolton (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, n.d.), 1:166.

16. A.B. Davidson, cited by H.H. Rowley, ed., Job: The New Century Bible (London: Nelson, 1970), p.102.

17. Norman Habel, The Book of Job (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), p.59.

18. E.M. Good, "Love in the Old Testament," Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible (New York: Abingdon, 1962), 3:167.

19. Meredith G. Kline, "Lex Talionis and the Human Fetus," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 20, no.3 (1977): 193-202.

20. Position 1, the "miscarriage" interpretation, is followed by the Latin Vulgate, Martin Luther's German Bible, the RSV, the NEB, and by modern interpreters such as J.C. Rylaarsdaam and Bruce Waltke (Rylaarsdaam, The Interpreter's Bible, ed. George Buttrick [New York: Abingdon, 1952], 1:999-1000; Waltke, "Old Testament on Abortion," p.3, n.3). Waltke, however, pointing to the accidental nature of the alleged miscarriage, does not draw the conclusion that the unborn child is less than a human being on the basis of the nonimposition of the capital penalty. As previously noted, he argues in fact that the imago Dei is present from conception.

21. Cf. Calvin, Commentaries on the Last Four Books of Moses, trans. C. Bingham (reprinted Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, n.d.), 3:41-42; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Volume 2, The Pentateuch, trans. J. Martin (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, n.d.), pp. 134, 135): U. Cassuto, Commentary on Exodus, trans. I. Abrahams(Jerusalem: Magnes, 1967), pp. 273-77; Harold Brown, "What the Supreme Court Didn't Know," Human Life Review 1, no.2 (1975):8-11; Donald Shoemaker, Abortion, the Bible, and the Christian (Cincinnati: Hayes, 1976), pp. 37-39; Jack Cottrell, "Abortion and the Mosaic Law," Christianity Today, March 16, 1973, pp. 6-9; C.C. Ryrie, "The Question of Abortion," in You Mean the Bible Teaches That. . . (Chicago: Moody, 1974), pp. 86-88; John Frame et al., "Report of the Committee to Study the Matter of Abortion," Agenda: 38th General Assembly, Orthodox Presbyterian Church (1971), pp. 94-98. Bernard Jackson, "The Problem of Exod. 21:22-5," Vetus Testamentum 23 (1973: 273-304, holds that v. 22 originally referred to a premature live birth, but that through a long process of redaction the meaning of the entire passage has been substantially changed.

22. Gen. 25:25-26; 35:11; 38:28-30; Exod. 1:5; Deut. 28:57; 2 Sam. 16:11; 1 Chron. 1:12; Job 1:21; 3:11; Eccles. 5:15; Jer. 20:18. Num. 12:12 indicates the birth of a stillborn child.

23. Kline, "Lex Talionis."

24. In the following discussion I am indebted to G.C. Berkouwer, Man; H. Wheeler Robinson, The Christian Doctrine of Man, 3rd ed. (Edinburgh: T.& T. Clark, 1926); John A.T. Robinson, The Body: A Study in Pauline Anthropology (London: SCM, 1952); Edmond Jacob, "psuche," Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (1974), 9:608-31; N. W. Porteous, "Soul," Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible IV (1962), 4:428-29; George H. Williams, "Religious Residues and Presuppositions in the American Debate on Abortion," Theological Studies 31, no. 1 (1970): 10-75. Berkouwer and Williams have helpful discussions on the questions of ensoulment and the creationist-traducianist debate.

25. For a survey of the various positions, and a helpful philosophical analysis of the concept of personhood, see Gabriel Pastrana, "Personhood and the Beginning of Human Life." Thomist 41, no. 2 (1977):247-94.

26. J. A. T. Robinson, The Body, p. 14. Robinson cites in this connection the famous statement of H. Wheeler Robinson: "The Hebrew idea of the personality is an animated body, and not an incarnated soul."

27. Jacob, "Psuche,", p. 631.

28. Gerhard von Rad, Old Testament Theology, trans. D. Stalker (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), 1:145. Cf. Berkouwer, Man, p. 75: "It is very noteworthy . . . that there has been an increasing reluctance to exclude man's body from the image of God -- and exclusion generally supported previously, when theologians sought the content of the image in man's 'higher' qualities, in contrast to the 'lower' bodily qualities which should not be considered in connection with the image."

29. Berkouwer, Man, p.205.

30. Herman Ridderbox, Paul: An Outline of His Theology, trans. J. de Witt (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), p. 116.

31. In this section I am indebted to the article by Graham A.D. Scott, "Abortion and the Incarnation," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 17 (1974):29-44.

32. Calvin comments on these words as follows: "She calls Mary the mother of her Lord. This denotes a unity of person in the two natures of Christ; as if she had said, that he who has begotten a mortal man in the womb of Mary is, at the same time, the eternal God" (Calvin, Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists [Grand Rapids: Associated Publishers, n.d.], p.23).

33. In the rare case of identical twins complete individuality may not be present from the time of conception. In such cases the zygote on the seventh or eighth day undergoes "segmentation: and divides into two identical parts. The definition of person proposed above, however, is framed in light of the general case, rather than the exception. For a detailed analysis of the philosophical use of the term "person," see Gabriel Pastrana, "Personhood and the Beginning of Human Life," Thomist 41, no. 2 (1977):247-94.

34. Philippe Aries, Centuries of Childhood, trans. R. Baldick (New York: Vintage, 1965), pp. 38-39, cited by James M. Humber, "The Case Against Abortion," Thomist 39, no. 1 (1975):75.

35. Thomas W. Hilgers, M.D., "Human Reproduction," Theological Studies 38, no. 1 (1977): 136-52.

36. Ibid., p. 148.

37. Paul Ramsey, "Points in Deciding About Abortion," in John T. Noonan, ed., The Morality of Abortion (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970), p. 84.

38. Germain Grisez and Joseph M. Boyle, Jr., "Life, Death and Liberty," Human Life Review 4, no. 4 (1978):67.

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