Abortion in the Bible: Does the Bible Say It's a Sin?

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily match my own. - Dr. Bart D. Ehrman

To talk about abortion in the Bible is to step into one of the most complex and emotionally charged debates of our time. 

Questions about abortion raise not only ethical and political disagreements, but also deeply personal convictions, and, at times, regrettably, even social hostility and violence. Precisely because of this, the topic cannot simply be avoided or dismissed. It requires careful, informed, and respectful discussion. 

As a historian writing for a broad audience through our blog, my aim here isn’t to advocate for a particular position, but to examine what the biblical texts themselves do (and do not) say. The guiding questions for this inquiry are straightforward but significant: Is abortion in the Bible? And does the Bible say abortion is a sin? 

These aren’t easy questions, but they can be approached with clarity when we attend closely to the evidence.

A key challenge, however, lies in the fact that modern debates about abortion often assume categories, definitions, and moral frameworks that didn’t necessarily exist in the ancient world. 

The biblical writings emerged in historical contexts very different from our own, shaped by distinct social structures, legal systems, and understandings of the human body.

As a result, we shouldn’t expect the Bible to address abortion in the direct and systematic way that contemporary discussions might demand. Instead, what we find are a range of passages (legal, narrative, and poetic) that touch on related issues such as pregnancy, fetal development, and the value of human life. 

Interpreting these texts requires attention to their original context, language, and purpose.

In this article, we’ll first situate the Bible within its ancient cultural and literary setting, highlighting why people cannot straightforwardly map its texts onto modern ethical debates. 

We’ll then examine several key passages from the Old Testament that are frequently cited in discussions about abortion, followed by a New Testament example that is sometimes brought into these conversations.

Throughout, the goal will be to present the material in a historically grounded and balanced way, allowing readers to see how different interpretations arise and why different people today come to a completely different conclusion while reading the same passages.

The Bible in Context: Ancient Documents, Not a Modern Rulebook

In their book The Abingdon Introduction to the Bible: Understanding Jewish and Christian Scriptures, Joel S. Kaminsky, Mark Reasoner, and Joel N. Lohr note:

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This brief overview underscores a foundational point: the Bible isn’t a single, unified work composed at one moment in time, but a diverse collection of writings that emerged across many centuries and in a wide range of historical settings.

Recognizing this diversity is essential for any historically responsible interpretation. The texts that make up the Bible were written by different authors, addressing different audiences, and shaped by distinct literary, theological, and social concerns.

Just as importantly, they belong to worlds that are profoundly different from our own: namely, the ancient Near Eastern and Greco-Roman contexts. These were societies with their own assumptions about family structure, law, the body, and reproduction. 

Concepts that dominate modern ethical debates, including those surrounding abortion in the Bible, weren’t framed in the same way in antiquity. As a result, it’s methodologically problematic to expect biblical texts to speak directly and unambiguously to contemporary categories without first considering their original historical horizons.

This tension between ancient context and modern application has been perceptively captured by Paula Fredriksen, who writes:

Her observation highlights a crucial methodological distinction: while theology often seeks to make ancient texts speak to present concerns, historical inquiry aims first to understand those texts within their original settings.

In this article, that historical orientation will be decisive. Rather than beginning with modern assumptions about what the Bible must say, we’ll examine how specific passages functioned within their own literary and cultural contexts. 

At the same time, we will acknowledge that these texts have been read in different ways! Not surprisingly, some interpreters argue that they implicitly condemn abortion, others maintain that they do not address it in any direct or systematic sense.

A careful analysis requires that both perspectives be presented with precision and without caricature.

With these contextual considerations in place, we are now in a better position to turn to the biblical texts themselves. By situating each passage within its historical and literary framework, we can more clearly assess what they contribute (and what they do not) to the broader question of abortion.

Abortion in the Bible: Key Old Testament Passages

This article will follow the conventional division of the Bible between the Old Testament and the New Testament. Obviously, this division is a Christian one, but we can follow it structurally without necessarily accepting a particular Christian (traditional) interpretation.

We’ll begin, therefore, with several key passages from the Old Testament (or Hebrew Bible), which contains most of the material relevant to this discussion. These texts provide the primary foundation for examining how issues related to abortion in the Bible have been interpreted.

Does the Bible Mention Abortion? Exodus 21:22–23

Abortion wasn’t unknown in the ancient world. Medical texts from Egypt and Mesopotamia attest to practices intended to terminate pregnancy. For example, the Ebers Papyrus (16th century B.C.E.) includes a prescription “to cause a woman to stop pregnancy,” indicating that such procedures were part of the broader medical and social landscape of antiquity. 

Against this background, it’s interesting that the Hebrew Bible doesn’t contain a direct legal prohibition or systematic discussion of abortion. 

The passage most frequently cited in modern debates comes from Exodus 21:22–23, which reads: “When people who are fighting injure a pregnant woman so that there is a miscarriage, and yet no further harm follows, the one responsible shall be fined… If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life.”

This raises an immediate and pressing question: does this mean that abortion in the Bible is a sin?

Many Christian apologists would answer this question in the affirmative, though often by reinterpreting the passage in ways that challenge the standard reading. 

For instance, Calum Miller, in his article, argues that the text doesn’t clearly describe a miscarriage at all. He notes that the Hebrew verb commonly translated as “miscarriage” more often refers to live birth, and that this passage doesn’t use a separate, more precise term for miscarriage.

On this reading, the scenario may involve a premature birth rather than fetal death. If so, the law would imply that if the child is harmed, the principle of “life for life” applies, suggesting that the unborn child is afforded legal protection comparable to that of any other person. 

Miller further cautions that differences in legal penalties do not necessarily reflect differences in intrinsic value since factors such as intent and circumstance can affect sentencing.

However, many Hebrew Bible scholars would disagree with such a reading and instead emphasize both the linguistic and contextual limits of the passage. 

John J. Collins, in his book What Are Biblical Values?, presents what is widely regarded as the more straightforward interpretation: that the text refers to an accidental miscarriage resulting from injury.

In this case, the imposition of a fine (rather than the more severe “life for life” penalty) may suggest a legal distinction between the fetus and a fully born person.

At the same time, Collins is careful to stress that this law addresses an unintended injury, not a deliberate termination of pregnancy. As he puts it, “an accidental miscarriage is not the same thing as intentional abortion.”

The passage, in this reading, doesn’t directly legislate abortion, but rather reflects how ancient Israelite law handled cases of bodily harm involving pregnant women.

Collins also draws attention to the history of interpretation, particularly the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible known as the Septuagint.

This version introduces a distinction between a “formed” and “unformed” fetus, assigning greater legal weight to the former.

Later interpreters, such as Philo of Alexandria, developed this idea further, suggesting that the moral status of the fetus might depend on its stage of development. 

Such interpretations demonstrate that even in antiquity, readers didn’t agree on how to understand the text, and that questions about fetal status were already subject to philosophical and cultural influence.

In the end, Exodus 21:22–23 doesn’t yield a single, uncontested answer. Some interpreters see in it an implicit affirmation of the value of unborn life, while others view it as evidence of a legal distinction between the fetus and the mother.

What can be said with confidence is that the passage addresses a specific case of accidental injury rather than offering a general moral teaching about abortion. As with many issues related to abortion in the Bible, the interpretation depends largely on how one reads the text, leaving modern readers to weigh the evidence and draw their own conclusions.

Does the Bible Say Abortion Is a Sin? Numbers 5:11–31

The second example frequently used in discussions about the issue of abortion in the Bible comes from the Book of Numbers (5:11–31).

This passage describes a ritual ordeal administered to a woman suspected of adultery. If a husband becomes jealous but lacks evidence, the woman is brought before a priest, made to drink a concoction of water mixed with dust from the sanctuary floor, and subjected to a divine test.

If she is guilty, the text states that her body will undergo physical affliction (often described as a swelling abdomen and failing “thigh”) whereas if she is innocent, she will remain unharmed and retain her fertility. 

While the text doesn’t explicitly mention pregnancy at every point, many scholars understand the ritual to be closely connected to reproductive outcomes.

This passage is sometimes cited in modern debates as evidence that the Bible explicitly condemns abortion.

The reasoning is relatively straightforward: if the ritual results in the loss of a fetus, and this outcome is portrayed negatively (as a curse or punishment) then it might be taken to imply that abortion itself is morally wrong.

In this reading, the text reinforces a broader biblical ethic that values unborn life and treats its destruction as a serious matter. As with the Exodus passage, however, the interpretation is far from straightforward and depends heavily on how one understands both the language and the broader cultural context.

A more nuanced perspective is offered by Baruch A. Levine in his Commentary on Numbers. Levine argues that, in many cases, pregnancy likely formed the background of the ordeal, since suspicion of adultery could arise precisely from a woman’s apparent conception.

He further suggests that the physical effects described in the text may indeed point to “the loss of her embryo” and that, in certain circumstances, the ritual could “terminate… pregnancy by what amounted to an induced miscarriage or abortion.”

Importantly, however, Levine doesn’t interpret this as a moral teaching about abortion. Instead, the termination of pregnancy appears as a byproduct of a ritual designed to resolve questions of marital fidelity and social order, not as an ethical judgment on abortion itself.

Levine’s analysis goes even further in clarifying the text’s underlying logic. While he acknowledges that the fetus is treated as having value (something also reflected in laws such as those in Exodus 21) he emphasizes that this value isn’t absolute.

The ritual is carried out “notwithstanding the potential loss of the value-bearing fetus,” indicating that other concerns (such as lineage, purity, and divine judgment) take precedence.

In fact, Levine concludes that what many modern readers would call a “right to life” isn’t articulated in these legal materials in an absolute sense. To put it more bluntly, the passage, according to his interpretation, doesn’t function as a prohibition of abortion, but rather reflects a world in which fetal life could be subordinated to broader social and religious priorities.

Similarly, in his course The Bible and Abortion, Bart D. Ehrman argues that this passage is best understood as describing a divinely sanctioned induced abortion, a ritual procedure required under specific legal conditions and not presented as morally problematic within its own framework.

This interpretation reinforces the broader observation that biblical texts do not approach abortion as a standalone ethical issue, but rather address it indirectly, if at all, within other legal and ritualistic contexts.

Is Abortion in the Bible? The Case of Genesis 2

Another verse that is sometimes brought into the debate about the issue of abortion in the Bible comes from Genesis. 

In the second creation account, we read how the first human is formed: “then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7).

The context here isn’t a legal or ethical discussion, but a theological narrative describing the origins of humanity. Unlike other passages that deal with laws or rituals, this text belongs to a broader reflection on what it means to be human in relation to God.

A key element of this verse is the idea that life begins with the divine breath. The human being, though formed from material substance (dust), doesn’t become a “living being” (nephesh) until God breathes life into him.

Most scholars understand this as a statement of theological anthropology. To put it more bluntly, it’s a reflection on the nature of human life as dependent on God. As Bill T. Arnold notes in his Commentary on Genesis, the phrase “living being” doesn’t refer to a separable “soul” within the body, but rather to the totality of the human person.

In other words, the text isn’t attempting to define when biological life begins, but what it means for a human to be fully alive.

Even so, if one were to read the passage more literally, it would still suggest that life is associated with breath rather than conception.

As Dr. Ehrman explains in his course, the Hebrew Bible consistently portrays a living human being as a material body animated by breath. In that sense, life begins when a being is capable of breathing. Prior to that, it’s not yet a “living being” in the full sense.

Abortion in the Bible: Psalm 139:13–16

Another passage frequently brought into discussions of abortion in the Bible comes from Psalm 139, a poetic reflection on God’s intimate knowledge of the human person. 

In verses 13–16, the psalmist declares: “For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb… My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret… Your eyes beheld my unformed substance”.

These lines are often cited as evidence that the Bible affirms the full value of human life already in the womb. But does this passage really condemn abortion? Some interpreters would argue that it does, seeing here a powerful affirmation of divine involvement in prenatal life.

A closer look, however, suggests that the passage operates in a very different register. As Mitchell Dahood explains in his Commentary, Psalm 139 is best understood as “a psalm of innocence composed by a religious leader… who was accused of idol worship,” structured as an appeal to God’s all-encompassing knowledge to vindicate the speaker.

In other words, the psalm isn’t a legal or ethical treatise, but a personal prayer rooted in a specific situation of accusation and self-defense.

Its central concern is the fact that God knows the speaker completely (his actions, intentions, and very existence), so thoroughly that no accusation can ultimately stand. This interpretation is reinforced by broader scholarly analysis of the psalm’s genre and theology. 

As Frank-Lothar Hossfeld and Erich Zenger argue, Psalm 139 is best classified as a wisdom meditation on the relationship between the human being and God. Its language of formation in the womb is part of a larger reflection on divine knowledge, presence, and creative power.

As Christian Frevel and Oda Wischmeyer put it in their study Menschsein: Perspektiven des Alten und Neuen Testaments (Being Human: Perspectives From the Old and New Testaments):

The crucial point, however, is that the focus isn’t the embryo itself, but its place within God’s comprehensive knowledge and plan. The psalmist is affirming that God knows even the earliest, hidden stages of existence, not defining when personhood begins or making a moral claim about abortion.

Moreover, much of the imagery in this passage is highly poetic and symbolic rather than literal. The reference to being formed “in the depths of the earth,” for example, isn’t a straightforward description of the womb, but part of a broader set of metaphors emphasizing hiddenness and divine creative activity beyond human perception.

As Hossfeld and Zenger note, such language reflects ancient cosmological imagination and underscores the mystery of human origins, not anatomical processes.

Taken together, these features suggest that Psalm 139 is concerned with theological anthropology (what it means to be a human known and sustained by God) rather than with biological development or ethical legislation.

In light of this, while Psalm 139 offers a profound reflection on divine knowledge and care extending even to prenatal existence, it doesn’t directly address the moral question of abortion. 

Like the other passages we have examined, its meaning depends heavily on how one interprets its genre, language, and purpose.

With this in mind, we can now turn briefly to a New Testament example, where the discussion takes yet another distinctive turn.

Abortion in the Bible: New Testament

To talk about abortion in the Bible from the perspective of the New Testament, one question immediately arises: What did Jesus say about abortion? The simple answer is: nothing.

The historical Jesus never spoke on abortion as far as we can tell. In this respect, a well-known observation by Bart D. Ehrman captures the situation with particular clarity:

This perspective serves as an important reminder that modern attempts to reconstruct “Jesus on abortion” must proceed with considerable historical caution.

That being said, some interpreters have argued that traces of a biblical perspective on abortion might still be found indirectly within the New Testament. 

One passage that is sometimes brought into the discussion appears in the Gospel of Luke (1:41–44), in the account of Mary’s visit to Elizabeth. 

The text describes how “when Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb… For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy.” At first glance, this scene (depicting an unborn child reacting within the womb) has been taken by some as evidence that the New Testament attributes a kind of personal or even spiritual awareness to the fetus.

A closer reading, however, suggests a more nuanced conclusion. In his Commentary on the Gospel of Luke, Michael Wolter emphasizes that such interpretations misunderstand the literary and theological intention of the passage.

As he puts it:

Rather than presenting a statement about fetal consciousness or moral status, Luke uses this episode as a narrative device: the movement of the unborn John functions as a sign of eschatological joy, signaling the unfolding of God’s salvific plan. 

The focus isn’t on the fetus as such, but on the theological meaning assigned to the event within the broader story.

Moreover, the scene is carefully constructed to convey interpretation rather than biological observation. Elizabeth’s response is explicitly attributed to the Holy Spirit, indicating that the significance of the event is revealed through divine inspiration rather than empirical description.

The “leaping” of the child, therefore, should be understood symbolically, as part of Luke’s narrative strategy to highlight the significance of the moment.

Conclusion

Paula Fredriksen’s already mentioned observation provides a fitting lens through which to draw all these threads together. Theology, as she notes, often functions as a kind of “time machine,” retrieving ancient texts and making them speak to present concerns. 

And that is precisely what we see in debates about abortion in the Bible. Readers who approach the text with a particular ethical framework will often find passages that appear to support their conclusions: whether by emphasizing the value of life in the womb or by pointing to texts that treat fetal life differently from that of a fully born person. 

In that sense, the Bible has repeatedly been enlisted on multiple sides of the same debate, not because it speaks with one clear voice on the issue, but because its diverse materials can be interpreted in different ways depending on the questions we bring to it.

A historical-critical approach, however, pushes us in a different direction. Rather than asking what the Bible should say about modern ethical issues, it asks what these texts meant within their original cultural and social contexts.

And when we do that, a more restrained conclusion emerges: the biblical writings do not address abortion as a clearly defined moral problem in the way contemporary discussions do. 

They speak instead to a range of related concerns (law, ritual, theology, and narrative) shaped by a world fundamentally different from our own. Recognizing this gap doesn’t resolve the modern debate, but it does clarify what is at stake.

In the end, how one understands abortion in the Bible depends largely on how one approaches the text itself: as a source to be harmonized with present-day convictions, or as a collection of ancient documents whose primary meaning lies in the past before it’s brought into conversation with the present.