Abstract
This chapter argues that biblical revelation served as the most important source, at least in European civilization, for the still critically important moral claim that each human life carries profound worth, and the related moral-legal demand that each human being’s dignity must be respected. In Christian theo-ethical terms, this means that the real issue is ‘the God-declared sacredness of each human life with correlated moral obligations’ rather than merely ‘human dignity’. The chapter enters into the biblical materials to present in their own distinctive ways central elements that gave birth to a sacredness-of-life norm and continue to fund that norm today. I reserve a few comments at the end of the chapter to discuss how and why ‘sacredness of human life’ became ‘human dignity’, and what was lost (and perhaps gained) when that transition occurred in the modern period.
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