mnkbdky

Pyrro,

This is not a statement of arrogance, but no one should do the bulk of their research on the net. It might be alright to start but most information should be considered suspect unless supported by substantial referrences to actual scholars in the field. I suggest you look at John Durham's commentary in the Word commentary series (he is a Christian scholar), or Nahum M. Sarna in the JPS Torah commentary (he is a Jewish scholar). Both are excellent scholars and their commentaries are great. Furthermore, they both agree that the lex talionis is about the law of equivalence. This view is now the general concensus among scholars in the field.

The question has to be here why the list of punishments would continue if this situation required the death penalty. Cleary the others do not matter after the person's life has been taken. As Sarna says, "If the mother dies, then the list of the other injuries she may have sustained is irrelevant . . . one would expect it [the lex talionis] to be independently presented and not tied to an exceptional case to which it can hardly apply as a whole. In short, the list of talionic provisions must be understood as a general statement of legal policy. It is a rhetorical formulation in concrete terms of an abstact principle--the law of equivalence" (Nahum M. Sarna, Exploring Exodus: The Origins of Biblical Israel, New York: Schocken Books, 1996, 186).

Also, you did not answer my question; do you have a working knowledge of Biblical Hebrew?