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Credit to George Alexopoulos (GPrime85 on twitter) my absolute favorite right wing cartoonist
(sh.itjust.works)
Not joking by the way, this was made by a conservative artist
Original twitter post: https://twitter.com/GPrime85/status/1697222846030721336
It's problematic to try to read that verse as just meaning "born" exactly because of the context. The whole passage is about restitution in two scenarios: a pregnant woman who is injured as a bystander from two men fighting and
suffers an unclear birth event with no additional damage
suffers an unclear birth event with additional damage.
Breaking it down that way, it seems apparent to me that the birth event must mean a miscarriage. If two men fight and that causes a woman to go into labor, but her child is safely delivered, what restitution would be owed? What harm has actually been caused? That actually eliminates scenario 1. The only way the whole passage makes any sense for the father to be owed payment is to see what property he has been deprived of- a potential child, or a potential child and his wife. And this just helps to reinforce the point: the punishment for causing the death of a person is not the same as for causing a miscarriage, which means that in the Old Testament unborn fetuses we're not equal to people
And no, American Evangelicals do not allow any room for error in translation of the Bible, because they see it as God's direct word to man and therefore it can't be wrong.
Guess I must be something other than an American Evangelical then. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It sounds like you found a sensible way to translate it.