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Anonymous
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but more relevantly for us it's in the Bible, in Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy.
hmm, coincidentally i was thinking the same thing when this thread came up, and wondering if the New Testament offers us any opinion (since things kinda change tone a bit somewhere in the chasm between Malachi and Matthew), and according to my reliable source (Hi, S!):
Hammurabi was a Babylonian legislator, whose code makes the Mosaic Law seem positively warm and fuzzy. The NT neither endorses nor condemns capital punishment, viewing such matters as affairs of secular government, not religious faith.
i offer this just in case anyone else besides me wondered.
btw, atomica's (admittedly lacking) etymological notes on 'mosaic' provide no biblical mention at all (other than, specifically, Mosaic Law). i fail to see a connection, as to meaning, but it seems unlikely that the derivation could have been entirely separate. i wonder what the OED has to say? hinthintjoe
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Carpal Tunnel
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From the Code of Hammurabi:
196. If a man put out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out.
197. If he break another man's bone, his bone shall be broken.
198. If he put out the eye of a freed man, or break the bone of a freed man, he shall pay one gold mina.
199. If he put out the eye of a man's slave, or break the bone of a man's slave, he shall pay one-half of its value.
200. If a man knock out the teeth of his equal, his teeth shall be knocked out.
201. If he knock out the teeth of a freed man, he shall pay one-third of a gold mina.
Exodus Chap. 21:
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But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life,
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eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,
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burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.
Leviticus 24
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But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life,
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eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,
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burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.
Deuteronomy Chap: 19
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Show no pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.
Bingley
Bingley
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It would be a superogatory 2c worth for me to chip in my views on either the death penalty as the most American of all issues or the ancient lore of defunct primitive desert tribes  – but there is a language-related point that is perhaps worth adding. Dianna Eades * has done detailed work on the intercultural issues arising from interaction between Aboriginal and other peoples. Her findings, in a nutshell, are this: the ways two different peoples use an apparently common language base (English) can be radically different because of their different cultural roots and assumed values. In particular she has demonstrated that this results in complete confusion in legal processes, where the participants from two different cultures are actually using completely different speech codes, without anyone acknowledging that this is happening. It strikes me that, given the extraordinary imbalance between black and white citizens I know to exist on US ‘death rows’, perhaps more thought might be given to how far language issues may be compromising fair and equal access to justice before this most dreadful of sanctions. References in case anyone’s more interested: *EADES, D.M. (1988) ‘They don’t speak an Aboriginal language, or do they?’ in KEEN, I. (ed) being Black: Aboriginal cultural continuity in settled Australia, Canberra, Aboriginal Studies Press EADES, D.M. (1998) ‘Communicative Strategies in Aboriginal English’ in MABIN, J. (ed) Using English: from conversation to canon, London & New York, Routledge LIBERMAN, K (1981) ‘Understanding Aborigines in Australian courts of law’, Human Organization, vol. 40 #3
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Talion is a new word to me too Max. I've seen an eye for an eye etc. referred to using the Latin phrase lex talionis , but I didn't know it had been taken over into English.
Bingley
Bingley
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Seems to me that the way to get ahead in this society was to learn to swim, then steal a trinket from the richest person in the vicinity - "call me a thief, and I'll have your house after you are executed"!
Ah, these stupid desert tribes - they thought life was black and white even then!
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Pooh-Bah
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<<McVeigh's execution just shows that the American "justice" system is retributive in nature. Capital punishment, as "setting an example", is a failure. It's simple revenge by the state,>>
Good folk from rock bottom to the attorney general himself corked yet another perverted screw in the prim rose glass of psychologistic by insisting on the need to execute "closure" for the victims' families. According to that argument, it is not the state's retribution, but the families' for whom the state is proxy.
When asked what he would do if his wife were raped in front of him, Dukakis flubbed the answer, which should have been, "I'd kill the mother f_cker--and that is why the state would be bound intercede on behalf of justice." Retribution is the natural--not the just--response.
We have lost sight of justice.
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" the American "justice" system is retributive in nature."
This is inaccurate in that it is not the system that calls for retribution. The system is composed of laws proposed and passed by representatives of the people, and approved by the majority of the people. Note how many people favored the execution. The government merely applied the laws.
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Carpal Tunnel
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...and approved by the majority of the people.
[rant]
In theory.
Since we 'punish' people for not following laws, why aren't we *insisting all participate in voting (as we do taxes).
This would reveal the true nature of the political landscape and not the island of those that, even in 'heavy' voter turnout years, are representing only 25 percent (if we are lucky) of the populus.
... and the statistical arguement that enough of a sampling has occurred to represent the full mass is clearly b......t in this case.[/rant]
::sigh::
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