Translating to Support Preconceived Ideology

KJV 1611/1769, Exodus 21:22
"If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine."

**I remember clearly the strong scolding I received as a teenager, when rough housing with my older sister who was pregnant, "Stop that, you'll hurt her and she'll lose the baby!" I do not recall anyone ever interpreting that as if she'll give birth prematurely! Surely the warning was she may miscarry, lose the "fruit". That is how the Latin Vulgate reads and the Wycliffe and Douay-Rheims English translation of the Vulgate. It is how the older men of God like Adam Clarke, John Trapp, etc. understood it. Even the Septuagint renders this verse based on the unborn being not fully formed, so a miscarriage.

NASB 1977, Exodus 21:22
“And if men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she has a miscarriage, yet there is no further injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman’s husband may demand of him; and he shall pay as the judges decide."

**Here we see the NASB77 in like manner translates as "miscarriage", just as the RSV, NEB, REB & NRSV.

NASB 1995, Exodus 21:22
“If men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she gives birth prematurely, yet there is no injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman’s husband may demand of him, and he shall pay as the judges decide."

**Oops, it is seen how this affects the idea that a human being exists at conception, so to match fundamentalist, right-wing belief, the translations is changed to "gives birth prematurely". Once the verse became critical to the abortion debate, the evangelical/fundamentalist translation changes to match their preconceived ideology.

NASB 2020, Exodus 21:22
“Now if people struggle with each other and strike a pregnant woman so that she gives birth prematurely, but there is no injury, the guilty person shall certainly be fined as the woman’s husband may demand of him, and he shall pay as the judges decide."

**Now with the NASB 2020, the gender question comes into play. It is no longer "men" as the translation of the Hebrew H582 אֱנוֹשׁ 'enowsh but it has become "people", yet this new revision retains "men" in Genesis 13:13; 19:4 for this same Hebrew word.

Gregorikos said:

Apparently what the Hebrew says there is "If men strove and thrust against a woman with child, who had come near or between them for the purpose of making peace, so that her children come out (come into the world)" - Keil and Delitzsch Commentary.

Traditionally that has been translated as miscarrying. But wait a minute.... the passage goes on to describe scenarios in which the child survives! By definition, that isn't a miscarriage. So IMO the KJV and traditional wordings is flat out wrong in this case. It's clearly talking about a premature birth, not a miscarriage.

Regarding the word that the NASB 2020 chose to translate as "people", that is a legit translation of that word. Here is the Brown Driver Briggs Lexicon:

H376
אישׁ
'ı̂ysh
BDB Definition:
1) man
1a) man, male (in contrast to woman, female)
1b) husband
1c) human being, person (in contrast to God)
1d) servant
1e) mankind
1f) champion
1g) great man
2) whosoever
3) each (adjective)
Part of Speech: noun masculine

The KJV also recognizes this, and translates it accordingly:

22 So Laban gathered together all the people of the place and made a feast. Genesis 29:22

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The K&D is a highly regarded commentary for sure, but it is by Lutherans and many if not most Lutheran scholars of that day were traducianists, the soul generated by the parents as well as the body. Hence a human being exists at conception; but, that has not been the majority view, as explained by Charles Hodge in his Systematic Theology.

"It is a far more important question, whether the soul of each man is immediately created, or, whether it is generated by the parents. The former is known, in theology, as “Creationism,” the latter as “Traducianism.” The Greek Church from the first took ground in favour of creationism as alone consistent with the true nature of the soul. Tertullian in the Latin Church was almost a materialist, at least he used the language of materialism, and held that the soul was as much begotten as the body. Jerome opposed that doctrine. Augustine was also very adverse to it; but in his controversy with Pelagius on the propagation of sin, he was tempted to favour the theory of traduction as affording an easier explanation of the fact that we derive a corrupt nature from Adam. He never, however, could bring himself fully to adopt it. Creationism became subsequently the almost universally received doctrine of the Latin, as it had always been of the Greek, Church. At the time of the Reformation the Protestants as a body adhered to the same view. Even the Form of Concord, the authoritative symbol of the Lutheran Church, favours creationism. The body of the Lutheran theologians of the seventeenth century, however, adopted the theory of traduction. Among the Reformed the reverse was true. Calvin, Beza, Turrettin, and the great majority of the Reformed theologians were creationists, only here and there one adopted the ex traduce theory."
CHAPTER III. The Origin of the Soul – Audiowebman

As I stated in the OP, sometimes context and common experience guides in interpretation and understanding. I do not recall anyone ever cautioning about any danger to the woman physically as "Be careful, she'll have a premature birth!" As early as the Greek OT used by Jesus and the Apostles Ex. 21:22 was seen as a miscarriage:

"And if two men strive and smite a woman with child, and her child be born imperfectly formed, he shall be forced to pay a penalty: as the woman's husband may lay upon him, he shall pay with a valuation. But if it be perfectly formed, he shall give life for life," (Exod 21:22-23 LXXE)

That view continued up through the major translations until the verse became important to the abortion debate, and then the evangelical/fundamentalist versions changed to support their right-wing agenda. I went online in 1995 with Windows 95 and newsgroups were very popular for religious discussion. One of the major objections by fundamentalists was to the NASB77 translation by "miscarriage". That was easily solved by changing the translation in NASB95 to the premature birth. I look at a translation bias as well as the translation arguments. It reminds me of how the Douay-Rheims translation of 2 Samuel 1:26 was handled to avoid the obvious, but embarrassing to many, conclusion of the statement. Notice the difference between the KJV and the Douay...

"I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women." (2Sam 1:26 KJV)

"I grieve for thee, my brother Jonathan: exceeding beautiful, and amiable to me above the love of women. As the mother loveth her only son, so did I love thee." (2Sam 1:26 DRC)

The verse is not translated wives or mothers, so the D-R just adds that sentence I underlined, which is fraudulent, a total fake! LOL

I am aware that "H582 אֱנוֹשׁ 'enowsh" means mortals, human beings; as did the word "man" and "men" in the English prior to this feminism changing of language. It requires the context to determine if it means "males" or people in general. I gave two examples of the inconsistency of the NASB2020 by mentioning Gen. 13:13 and I'll quote the more accurate, on this verse, NRSV:

"Now the people of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the LORD." (Gen 13:13 NRSV)

The NASB2020 continued with "men" in that verse. Then, one that I find very difficult to understand in this day of gender inclusivity, among all the translations, is Gen. 19:4 -

"Before they lay down, the men of the city—the men of Sodom—surrounded the house, both young and old, all the people from every quarter;" NASB2020

It is the young and the old, ALL THE PEOPLE, from every quarter; so it is clearly just that, ALL THE PEOPLE, the citizens of Sodom male and female! But the NASB2020 which found it important to change from "men" to "people" in Ex. 21:22 has left it as "men" in Gen. 13:13; 19:4

I am much more comfortable with a degree of anti-supernaturalism in the mainstream translations; RSV, NEB, NRSV & REB than I am the right-wing fundamentalist bias of the modern evangelical translations.

Andrewn said:

Translations indicating miscarriage:
KJV, DRC, RSV, NRSV, GNT, REB, CJB, NABRE, NJB, NJPS.

Translations indicating live premature birth:
ESV, CSB, EHV, MEV, NKJV, NASB, NIV, NET, NLT.

Conclusion:
The above lists show that the concept of a "miscarriage" is understood in Jewish translations, Catholic translations, old translations, and modern scholarly translations.

OTOH, the concept of a "live birth" is adhered to in modern translations with Evangelical roots.

I was especially surprised to find the concept of a "miscarriage" in all Catholic translations, despite their abortion theology, but this seems to suggest that this is most likely the correct understanding. Jewish translations also confirm this. Moreover, the ancient LXX understanding of this verse is a "miscarriage" which should settle the debate:

Exo 21:22 Now if two men fight and strike a pregnant woman and her child comes forth not fully formed, he shall be punished with a fine. According as the husband of the woman might impose, he shall pay with judicial assessment.

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Hello Andrew! I notice you quoted the New English Translation of the Septuagint. I have that bookmarked online, but do you have it in some Bible software program? Having spent the first 30 years of my life in fundamentalism, I don't have a lot of patience with that.

Gregorikos said:

I have it in Olivetree.

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Thanks! I came across a very interesting article by an Orthodox scholar where he comments on this translation of the Septuagint and also mentions the Septuagint translation in the Orthodox Study Bible. I find his entire article very interesting, but I'll just quote what he said about this particular LXX:

"The New English Translation of the Septuagint is a “scholarly” translation that I think is worth having on hand for reference, but the translation is seriously flawed—both in terms of style and substance. Stylistically, the use of mostly unfamiliar transliterations for the names of people and places from the Greek make this text very awkward and practically unusable by the average layman. For example, you will search in vain in a Bible dictionary for Heua, Kain, Habel, Saoul, Dauid, or Nabouchodonosor—while the names of Eve, Cain, Abel, Saul, David, and even Nebuchadnezzar are generally familiar. The argument that using the standard forms of these names would be less than a faithful translation of the Greek is belied by the fact that translations of the New Testament are also from Greek, and yet we do not generally find the names “Iesous Christos,” “Petros,” “Paulos,” or “Iakovos,” but we do generally see the standard forms of the names found in the King James Version which have been the standard in English for four centuries. And in terms of substance, the text is far worse. For example, contrary to two thousand years of reading this text in the context of the Christian Tradition, they translate Genesis 1:2 as saying that a divine wind was being carried along over the water. That is a plainly heretical translation of the text. You also find a tendency towards gender neutral language to the point that significant distortions of the meaning of the text take place, such as Genesis 3:15, in which the seed of the woman becomes simply the offspring despite the fact that the Greek reads spermastos, and one does not have to be a Greek scholar to understand that this does not simply mean offspring."
Fr. John Whiteford. An Orthodox Look at English Translations of the Bible

A.ModerateOne said:

The K&D is a highly regarded commentary for sure, but it is by Lutherans and many if not most Lutheran scholars of that day were traducianists, the soul generated by the parents as well as the body. Hence a human being exists at conception; but, that has not been the majority view, as explained by Charles Hodge in his Systematic Theology.

"It is a far more important question, whether the soul of each man is immediately created, or, whether it is generated by the parents. The former is known, in theology, as “Creationism,” the latter as “Traducianism.” The Greek Church from the first took ground in favour of creationism as alone consistent with the true nature of the soul. Tertullian in the Latin Church was almost a materialist, at least he used the language of materialism, and held that the soul was as much begotten as the body. Jerome opposed that doctrine. Augustine was also very adverse to it; but in his controversy with Pelagius on the propagation of sin, he was tempted to favour the theory of traduction as affording an easier explanation of the fact that we derive a corrupt nature from Adam. He never, however, could bring himself fully to adopt it. Creationism became subsequently the almost universally received doctrine of the Latin, as it had always been of the Greek, Church. At the time of the Reformation the Protestants as a body adhered to the same view. Even the Form of Concord, the authoritative symbol of the Lutheran Church, favours creationism. The body of the Lutheran theologians of the seventeenth century, however, adopted the theory of traduction. Among the Reformed the reverse was true. Calvin, Beza, Turrettin, and the great majority of the Reformed theologians were creationists, only here and there one adopted the ex traduce theory."
CHAPTER III. The Origin of the Soul – Audiowebman

As I stated in the OP, sometimes context and common experience guides in interpretation and understanding. I do not recall anyone ever cautioning about any danger to the woman physically as "Be careful, she'll have a premature birth!" As early as the Greek OT used by Jesus and the Apostles Ex. 21:22 was seen as a miscarriage:

"And if two men strive and smite a woman with child, and her child be born imperfectly formed, he shall be forced to pay a penalty: as the woman's husband may lay upon him, he shall pay with a valuation. But if it be perfectly formed, he shall give life for life," (Exod 21:22-23 LXXE)

That view continued up through the major translations until the verse became important to the abortion debate, and then the evangelical/fundamentalist versions changed to support their right-wing agenda. I went online in 1995 with Windows 95 and newsgroups were very popular for religious discussion. One of the major objections by fundamentalists was to the NASB77 translation by "miscarriage". That was easily solved by changing the translation in NASB95 to the premature birth. I look at a translation bias as well as the translation arguments. It reminds me of how the Douay-Rheims translation of 2 Samuel 1:26 was handled to avoid the obvious, but embarrassing to many, conclusion of the statement. Notice the difference between the KJV and the Douay...

"I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women." (2Sam 1:26 KJV)

"I grieve for thee, my brother Jonathan: exceeding beautiful, and amiable to me above the love of women. As the mother loveth her only son, so did I love thee." (2Sam 1:26 DRC)

The verse is not translated wives or mothers, so the D-R just adds that sentence I underlined, which is fraudulent, a total fake! LOL

I am aware that "H582 אֱנוֹשׁ 'enowsh" means mortals, human beings; as did the word "man" and "men" in the English prior to this feminism changing of language. It requires the context to determine if it means "males" or people in general. I gave two examples of the inconsistency of the NASB2020 by mentioning Gen. 13:13 and I'll quote the more accurate, on this verse, NRSV:

"Now the people of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the LORD." (Gen 13:13 NRSV)

The NASB2020 continued with "men" in that verse. Then, one that I find very difficult to understand in this day of gender inclusivity, among all the translations, is Gen. 19:4 -

"Before they lay down, the men of the city—the men of Sodom—surrounded the house, both young and old, all the people from every quarter;" NASB2020

It is the young and the old, ALL THE PEOPLE, from every quarter; so it is clearly just that, ALL THE PEOPLE, the citizens of Sodom male and female! But the NASB2020 which found it important to change from "men" to "people" in Ex. 21:22 has left it as "men" in Gen. 13:13; 19:4

I am much more comfortable with a degree of anti-supernaturalism in the mainstream translations; RSV, NEB, NRSV & REB than I am the right-wing fundamentalist bias of the modern evangelical translations.

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CORRECTION ... I wish to make a correction to a statement I made about the Douay-Rheims translation of 2 Sam. 1:26. The D-R is an English translation of the Vulgate and that sentence is in the Vulgate. Then, according to an article online, the original Old Latin or Italia Version made in 150 AD is what Jerome used for his Vulgate; but it is this 150 AD text that is claimed to have been the basis for the Wycliffe translation. Wycliffe also includes that sentence that is not found in the Hebrew or the Greek OT, so apparently it was added to the Old Latin. Apparently the addition of that fake sentence was added much earlier then the D-R.
The Latin Vulgate Unmasked At Last!!