Monday, June 9, 2008

 

Josephus on Sodomy and Abortion

At the time of Josephus, Jewish law abhorred homosexuality, of course. It also seems to have treated abortion as murder (Against Apion, 2.25)

But, then, what are our laws about marriage? That law owns no other mixture of sexes but that which nature hath appointed, of a man with his wife, and that this be used only for the procreation of children. But it abhors the mixture of a male with a male; and if any one do that, death is its punishment. ... The law, moreover, enjoins us to bring up all our offspring, and forbids women to cause abortion of what is begotten, or to destroy it afterward; and if any woman appears to have so done, she will be a murderer of her child, by destroying a living creature, and diminishing human kind; if any one, therefore, proceeds to such fornication or murder, he cannot be clean.

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1 Comments:

Blogger hotfive said...

By the most conservative estimates, 100,000 Iraqi civilians have been destroyed since 2003, diminishing human kind in the name of fighting terrorism and/or promoting freedom. What do Jewish and Christian laws have to say about that sort of murder? Could the authors of the respective religious texts have envisioned U.S. military might?

November 4, 2008 11:30 AM  

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