a miscarriage: a child expelled from the womb dead, or far too undeveloped to live
This is a blunt, physical word borrowed from Greek medicine. It names what comes out when a pregnancy ends far too early: a miscarriage, a stillbirth, an aborted fetus. Doctors and ordinary speakers used it that way, and an ancient Greek word list defines it as a child that died before its time and was expelled from its mother. More literary writers preferred other words for the same thing, so this one already sounded clinical and coarse.
The New Testament uses it exactly once. Paul finishes his list of people the risen Christ appeared to (Peter, the Twelve, five hundred believers at once, James, all the apostles) and then places himself at the end with this word: last of all, as though to the miscarriage, he appeared also to me (1 Corinthians 15:8). The very next sentence shows the weight he wants it to carry. He calls himself the least of the apostles, unfit to be called one at all, because he had persecuted the church, and then credits everything he became to God's kindness toward him.
What loads the word is the older Greek translation of the Old Testament, which Paul read and quoted. That translation uses this word in three bleak places: Aaron pleading that his leprous sister not be left like a stillborn child (Numbers 12:12), Job wishing he had been a stillbirth that never saw daylight (Job 3:16), and Ecclesiastes judging a stillborn child better off than a man who lives long without joy (Ecclesiastes 6:3). None of those are New Testament verses, but they are where the word picked up its freight of horror, pity, and worthlessness. Behind all three stands a Hebrew word that means simply something fallen (נֵפֶל).
Scholars agree on what the word means and argue about why Paul reaches for it. Four readings are live, and several writers combine them:
- some think it began as a jibe his critics in Corinth threw at him, which he defiantly takes up and wears
- some read it purely as self-abasement, matched to the least of the apostles in the following verse
- some stress that a miscarriage comes too early, so Paul means his call was abrupt and out of sequence, hurried before he was ready
- some stress that such a fetus is lifeless, so Paul means he was as good as dead until grace gave him life
Whether the word here pictures a fetus already dead or a living but premature birth, and so whether Paul is stressing lifelessness or the abnormal timing of his call.
- contestedA lifeless fetus. Paul describes his pre-Christian self as spiritually dead until grace gave him life; Gieniusz sharpens this to "dead and death-dealing", since Paul was also a persecutor of the church.; A. C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, NIGTC; J. A. Fitzmyer, First Corinthians, Anchor Yale Bible; A. Gieniusz, "'As a Miscarriage'", The Biblical Annals (2013)
- contestedA premature but living birth. The word denotes an early birth rather than a late one, so Paul means his call was hurried and out of sequence, before the circle of witnesses closed.; J. Schneider, "ἔκτρωμα", TDNT II; W. Schrage, Der erste Brief an die Korinther, EKK
Whether the word was a term of abuse used of Paul by critics in Corinth, which he ironically takes up, or simply his own self-description.
- majorityPaul's own self-abasement, tied to calling himself the least of the apostles in the next verse. The article before the noun should not be pressed into a nickname, and Paul is not on the defensive in this passage.; D. E. Garland, 1 Corinthians, BECNT; H. Conzelmann, 1 Corinthians, Hermeneia; G. W. H. Lampe, A Patristic Greek Lexicon, s.v. ἔκτρωμα
- minorityAn insult from Paul's opponents that he defiantly accepts, with the article pointing to a label already in use for him.; A. Fridrichsen, "Paulus Abortivus. Zu 1 Kor. 15,8" (1932); J. Munck, "Paulus tanquam abortivus (1 Cor. 15:8)" (1959); G. D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, NICNT