Is God’s justice close to an eye for an eye?

There are many references in scripture that indicate that an eye for an eye is good justice. This notion that a penalty should fit the crime has even been adopted by most legal system in the world.

Leviticus 24:20 Breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth: as he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again.

This rather good policy is often contradicted in other scriptures that call for death to sinners who have done much less in terms of harm or sin than causing a death. We are told to stone unruly children, fornicators, witches and so on to a rather long list.

God himself has either killed or had killed many, even children and babies who in no way could have killed anyone.

Scripture tells us to revere life yet God and many of the laws attributed to him seem to ignore completely any reverence to life. In fact, to me, scriptures seem to make life an extremely cheap commodity even as it shows how important we are supposed to be to God. His greatest achievement in fact that even angels are to bow before.

Should an eye for an eye be re-written by God and the bible to read ------ an eye for whatever the hell God, Jesus and the scriptures say?

This immoral killing goes right back to Eden with God killing Adam and Eve for following scripture and emulating God.

Matthew 5:48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
When they did as asked, and this was recognized by God himself; Gen 3: 22 Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: He killed them by withholding the tree of life.

This issue of indiscriminate killing is an important contradiction in scriptures.
What do you think God’s law is?

An eye for an eye or the punishment should fit the sin; or, kill even if the victim to be has not come anywhere near killing?

Regards
DL

http://www.youtube.com/user/TurpisHaere ... ny-CDU4EFs

http://www.evilbible.com/god%27s%20not%20pro-life.htm

Greatest I am wrote:
Leviticus 24:20 Breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth: as he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again.

I think the scribes who wrote/translated Leviticus from the original revealed teachings made it more harsh to suit the political ends of the era it was redered to please the rulers . We see that David did forgive his enemies so many times and David was a good Jew.

Aside from leviticus 24:20, please cite more references in which God endorsed an eye for an eye mentality?

You'd find the case would be the penalty was either death for a major sin against God, or a monetary reimbursement. If an Israelite stole, his hands were not cut off which is typical in eye for an eye cultures. As well, if a man caused bodily harm to another man, oftentimes the case was not physical harm to other man but some sort of re-compensation. The only big example was death was repaid by death.

willhud9 wrote:Aside from leviticus 24:20, please cite more references in which God endorsed an eye for an eye mentality?

You'd find the case would be the penalty was either death for a major sin against God, or a monetary reimbursement. If an Israelite stole, his hands were not cut off which is typical in eye for an eye cultures. As well, if a man caused bodily harm to another man, oftentimes the case was not physical harm to other man but some sort of re-compensation. The only big example was death was repaid by death.

All such places in the OT don't mention the truthful teachings of the Creator God; they only support the rulers of the time or reflect the prevailing culture. The Creator God is Forgiving and Merciful not a cruel being; the real intention is to reform the criminal and to bring him back on the truthful path.

paarsurrey wrote:

willhud9 wrote:Aside from leviticus 24:20, please cite more references in which God endorsed an eye for an eye mentality?

You'd find the case would be the penalty was either death for a major sin against God, or a monetary reimbursement. If an Israelite stole, his hands were not cut off which is typical in eye for an eye cultures. As well, if a man caused bodily harm to another man, oftentimes the case was not physical harm to other man but some sort of re-compensation. The only big example was death was repaid by death.

All such places in the OT don't mention the truthful teachings of the Creator God; they only support the rulers of the time or reflect the prevailing culture. The Creator God is Forgiving and Merciful not a cruel being; the real intention is to reform the criminal and to bring him back on the truthful path.

....trying hard....not to.......

I don't think it's really all that possible to form any kind of coherent system of justice from the OT and NT. It appears to me to skip about from draconian, retributive, restorative and obviously substitutionary forms of justice and just about everything in between.

Willhud, I'm sure you know this sort of thing better than me. Do you recon you can forge a coherent system of justice from the books alone?

If you follow the wibbles idea of justice, everyone ends up disabled. Thankfully, the west, had the enlightenment. We ditched these barbaric punishments. Though some, especially the religious, would love to bring back the ducking stool, and all that idiotic philosophy brings to the table of "Justice". Which is nothing. Actually, its more than nothing, its called discrimination, which is the foundation, of every religion, and their idea of justice (Kill the infidel).

Depends on how one views the texts. For example, many of the Prophetic Books in Christian canon seem to have God bringing this divine retribution against Israel's foes. However, in the Pentateuch God promised that he'd deliver and bless all nations not just Israel. As well, the Book of Jonah involves God sending Jonah to save Ninevah, not destroy it. Surely if God's law was retributive, God would not have blessed all nations nor have Jonah preach to Assyria. The more draconian laws need to be seen in context of the character that is God. Even in the New Testament direct sin against God i.e idolatry, blasphemy, deliberate disobedience is met with death. Romans 6:23 or Ananias and his wife in Acts. God cannot tolerate sin, and he remains consistent throughout all the books of the Bible. However, sins against God aimed at a brother or sister were not met with the same severity. If Ananias has simply lied to Peter and the apostles, the punishment would not have been severe. However, to answer your question, in Christian doctrine, yes you can, if you take the whole of the Bible as a coherent working piece. From Abraham who was justified by faith without the law, to Moses who sinned against God with the law, to David who even with a heart fully reliant on God committed adultery, murder, and theft, to Solomon who turned his heart away from God, to the Prophets who sought to rebuild Israel and to Christ who fulfilled the Law and created a new yoke for God's children, there lies that restorative justice. Everything works towards an end, a goal, and Paul says that goal is God's plan and fulfillment of that plan. Paul says the Mosaic law was meant to show people the true law, which is Christ. If Christ is the law and was meant to be the law than the Old Testament led up to Christ. It's a completed circuit: the Fall (genesis), Redemption (Old Testament), Salvation (New Testament)....and then revelation, but that's another theological hurdle.

Ultimately this varies between sect, denomination, churches within a denomination etc and so no there is no clear coherant system of justice in the Bible that can be agreed upon by biblical scholars. In my opinion there is which is the above, but my opinion is a vastly minority opinion and therefore not too serious in academia, sadly.

willhud9 wrote:As well, the Book of Jonah involves God sending Jonah to save Ninevah, not destroy it. Surely if God's law was retributive, God would not have blessed all nations nor have Jonah preach to Assyria. The more draconian laws need to be seen in context of the character that is God.

I agree with you. The scribes played a lot with the Bible to put in harsh punishment to please the persons who ruled or were in authority to subdue the people.

paarsurrey wrote:

Greatest I am wrote:
Leviticus 24:20 Breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth: as he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again.

I think the scribes who wrote/translated Leviticus from the original revealed teachings made it more harsh to suit the political ends of the era it was redered to please the rulers . We see that David did forgive his enemies so many times and David was a good Jew.

That saying is damned near universal.

This does not tell us if you favor it or if you would kill those who have done way less than kill.

What say you?

Regards
DL

willhud9 wrote:Aside from leviticus 24:20, please cite more references in which God endorsed an eye for an eye mentality?

You'd find the case would be the penalty was either death for a major sin against God, or a monetary reimbursement. If an Israelite stole, his hands were not cut off which is typical in eye for an eye cultures. As well, if a man caused bodily harm to another man, oftentimes the case was not physical harm to other man but some sort of re-compensation. The only big example was death was repaid by death.

Keep this link to a search engine. Learn how to use Google.

http://www.biblegateway.com/keyword/?se ... spanend=73

How do we sin against God?
Sin must have a victim if it is to be called a sin.
Can you victimize God?

Regards
DL

paarsurrey wrote:

willhud9 wrote:Aside from leviticus 24:20, please cite more references in which God endorsed an eye for an eye mentality?

You'd find the case would be the penalty was either death for a major sin against God, or a monetary reimbursement. If an Israelite stole, his hands were not cut off which is typical in eye for an eye cultures. As well, if a man caused bodily harm to another man, oftentimes the case was not physical harm to other man but some sort of re-compensation. The only big example was death was repaid by death.

All such places in the OT don't mention the truthful teachings of the Creator God; they only support the rulers of the time or reflect the prevailing culture. The Creator God is Forgiving and Merciful not a cruel being; the real intention is to reform the criminal and to bring him back on the truthful path.

Who did God reform at Sodom?
Who did God reform with his genocidal flood?
Who will reform in everlasting torture in hell?

Regards
DL

Bribase wrote:I don't think it's really all that possible to form any kind of coherent system of justice from the OT and NT. It appears to me to skip about from draconian, retributive, restorative and obviously substitutionary forms of justice and just about everything in between.

Willhud, I'm sure you know this sort of thing better than me. Do you recon you can forge a coherent system of justice from the books alone?

+ 1

Regards
DL

Greatest I am wrote:Is God’s justice close to an eye for an eye?

There are many references in scripture that indicate that an eye for an eye is good justice. This notion that a penalty should fit the crime has even been adopted by most legal system in the world.

Leviticus 24:20 Breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth: as he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again.

This rather good policy is often contradicted in other scriptures that call for death to sinners who have done much less in terms of harm or sin than causing a death. We are told to stone unruly children, fornicators, witches and so on to a rather long list.

God himself has either killed or had killed many, even children and babies who in no way could have killed anyone.

Scripture tells us to revere life yet God and many of the laws attributed to him seem to ignore completely any reverence to life. In fact, to me, scriptures seem to make life an extremely cheap commodity even as it shows how important we are supposed to be to God. His greatest achievement in fact that even angels are to bow before.

Should an eye for an eye be re-written by God and the bible to read ------ an eye for whatever the hell God, Jesus and the scriptures say?

This immoral killing goes right back to Eden with God killing Adam and Eve for following scripture and emulating God.

Matthew 5:48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
When they did as asked, and this was recognized by God himself; Gen 3: 22 Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: He killed them by withholding the tree of life.

This issue of indiscriminate killing is an important contradiction in scriptures.
What do you think God’s law is?

An eye for an eye or the punishment should fit the sin; or, kill even if the victim to be has not come anywhere near killing?

Regards
DL

http://www.youtube.com/user/TurpisHaere ... ny-CDU4EFs

http://www.evilbible.com/god%27s%20not%20pro-life.htm

What it comes down to is that it's a primitive set of rules for a primitive time and yet tradition and the passing on of ideas from generation to generation are so strong we still struggle with it.

But the reason we see contradictions of it even in the Bible was that times and the culture were changing. So eventually we see it changed specifically to, "You have heard it was said to the people long ago, love your firends and hate your enemis, but I say to you love your enemies..."

I see no valid way of denying that something said earlier was changed there. Had somebody not thrown in some line about there being no other testaments after Revelations and had not the Church canonized only specific works with a statement that there could be no others thereafter, it might have been easier to take this mythos/ religion and adapt it to changing times and culture.

As it stands, groups have emerged rejecting some of the outdated cultural concepts but they are generally considered to be not part of the mainstream religion.

In some ways, it is amusing to see people who insist one cannot change the Bible when the biblical writers themselves did it. The difference is people believe that "God" advocated those changes (and yet is unchanging in his morality).

Luckily, people rewrite religions based on the real needs of the times and cultures so, hopefully, things like "No more testaments" will be ignored although throwing out mythology altogether would be preferable.

paarsurrey wrote:

willhud9 wrote:Aside from leviticus 24:20, please cite more references in which God endorsed an eye for an eye mentality?

You'd find the case would be the penalty was either death for a major sin against God, or a monetary reimbursement. If an Israelite stole, his hands were not cut off which is typical in eye for an eye cultures. As well, if a man caused bodily harm to another man, oftentimes the case was not physical harm to other man but some sort of re-compensation. The only big example was death was repaid by death.

All such places in the OT don't mention the truthful teachings of the Creator God; they only support the rulers of the time or reflect the prevailing culture. The Creator God is Forgiving and Merciful not a cruel being; the real intention is to reform the criminal and to bring him back on the truthful path.

Ah, so "God" is whatever and only whatever you want to believe and even the very writers of the Bible are wrong if they disagree with you. Convenient that the biblical writings are not directly part of your religion.

Greatest I am wrote:

paarsurrey wrote:

Greatest I am wrote:
Leviticus 24:20 Breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth: as he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again.

I think the scribes who wrote/translated Leviticus from the original revealed teachings made it more harsh to suit the political ends of the era it was redered to please the rulers . We see that David did forgive his enemies so many times and David was a good Jew.

That saying is damned near universal.

This does not tell us if you favor it or if you would kill those who have done way less than kill.

What say you?

Regards
DL

It does not tell the complete teachings of the Creator God; I think the scribe hid the other part which pertained to forgiving the criminal for an agreed ransom, if the heirs of the victim agree and it seems that the criminal will not be a danger to the society.

Greatest I am wrote:

paarsurrey wrote:

Greatest I am wrote:
Leviticus 24:20 Breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth: as he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again.

I think the scribes who wrote/translated Leviticus from the original revealed teachings made it more harsh to suit the political ends of the era it was redered to please the rulers . We see that David did forgive his enemies so many times and David was a good Jew.

That saying is damned near universal.

This does not tell us if you favor it or if you would kill those who have done way less than kill.

What say you?

Regards
DL

I am always reminded of the story of how David became King. His predeccesor, Saul, was not willing to go into a neighboring kingdom and slaughter every man, woman and child. So Yahweh appointed someone else to be King, someone who had no qualms about doing that- David.

Yes, according to the mythical story, David was a good Jew, a good follower of Yahweh. In fact, the whole point of the story was to not let squemishness or compassion get in the way but to follow Yahweh without questions. And the bloody history (or mythology, more accurately) attests that they generally did.

Moonwatcher wrote:

Greatest I am wrote:

paarsurrey wrote:

Greatest I am wrote:
Leviticus 24:20 Breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth: as he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again.

I think the scribes who wrote/translated Leviticus from the original revealed teachings made it more harsh to suit the political ends of the era it was redered to please the rulers . We see that David did forgive his enemies so many times and David was a good Jew.

That saying is damned near universal.

This does not tell us if you favor it or if you would kill those who have done way less than kill.

What say you?

Regards
DL

I am always reminded of the story of how David became King. His predeccesor, Saul, was not willing to go into a neighboring kingdom and slaughter every man, woman and child. So Yahweh appointed someone else to be King, someone who had no qualms about doing that- David.

Yes, according to the mythical story, David was a good Jew, a good follower of Yahweh. In fact, the whole point of the story was to not let squemishness or compassion get in the way but to follow Yahweh without questions. And the bloody history (or mythology, more accurately) attests that they generally did.

Political power is not the focal point of religion, in my opinion.

King David was a messenger and prophet of the Creator God and was a good Jew; he followed truthful teachings of Moses.

paarsurrey wrote:

Moonwatcher wrote:

Greatest I am wrote:

paarsurrey wrote:

I think the scribes who wrote/translated Leviticus from the original revealed teachings made it more harsh to suit the political ends of the era it was redered to please the rulers . We see that David did forgive his enemies so many times and David was a good Jew.

That saying is damned near universal.

This does not tell us if you favor it or if you would kill those who have done way less than kill.

What say you?

Regards
DL

I am always reminded of the story of how David became King. His predeccesor, Saul, was not willing to go into a neighboring kingdom and slaughter every man, woman and child. So Yahweh appointed someone else to be King, someone who had no qualms about doing that- David.

Yes, according to the mythical story, David was a good Jew, a good follower of Yahweh. In fact, the whole point of the story was to not let squemishness or compassion get in the way but to follow Yahweh without questions. And the bloody history (or mythology, more accurately) attests that they generally did.

Political power is not the focal point of religion, in my opinion.

King David was a messenger and prophet of the Creator God and was a good Jew; he followed truthful teachings of Moses.

When he killed all those people that Saul would not kill, was he following the truthful teachings of Moses?

james1v wrote:If you follow the wibbles idea of justice, everyone ends up disabled. Thankfully, the west, had the enlightenment. We ditched these barbaric punishments. Though some, especially the religious, would love to bring back the ducking stool, and all that idiotic philosophy brings to the table of "Justice". Which is nothing. Actually, its more than nothing, its called discrimination, which is the foundation, of every religion, and their idea of justice (Kill the infidel).

I agree.
I would amend what you said to discrimination without just cause.

You will know that all of our laws are based on discrimination so in that sense, discrimination is quite good if there is a just cause behind it.

For example, murderers.

The law tells us and demands that we discriminate quite strongly against this sub group of our society.
Indeed compulsion on us to discriminate against these is written in the law and if we know of one and do not act on this compulsion and discriminate, we are found to be accessories after the fact.

Regards
DL