brighid

This morning I was thinking about the 10 Commandments, specifically “Thou Shall Not Kill” and how the OT and the NT go on to list the many sins that are punishable by death. I realize this is yet another contradiction of the Bible and I find it ironic that states with the death penalty are also some of the states that either post the 10 C’s … but I digress.

Why have this ambiguous commandment and then have chapter after chapter, verse after verse of prescriptions in regard to whom, when and how people should be killed/murdered? Especially if the greatest commandment is to love thy neighbor as thy self, and God with all your heart, etc.? How can one be justified to kill and murder people because of their sins?

Brighid

kookiejar

Here is the thing that really burns my toast, Brighid. God tells us not to kill and then he orders some shmoe to go and destroy a village. What the....?

Jayhawker Soule

Or, perhaps, 'Thou shall mot murder.', as has no doubt been discussed many times before.

Sometime I think looking for the contradiction in Judeo-Christian folklore is a bit like searching for the smoking gun in a nuclear landscape.

brighid

Yes, I have chosen to interpret it as thou shall not murder, but as we all know many Christian DON'T interpret it this way (because many Bibles replace murder with kill.) Just take a look at the pro-life movement and the Sanctity of Life none sense of the Catholic Church.

Good analogy Reasonable!

Brighid

sidewinder

What I don't understand is the response of our Christian leadership to the events of 9/11. If they were truly Christians, they would've turned the other cheek. Jesus commanded his followers not to strike back at their enemies but to pray for them and to offer them their other cheek.

Jayhawker Soule

Thanks, but my point about "looking for the contradiction in Judeo-Christian folklore is a bit like searching for the smoking gun in a nuclear landscape" was that you're not likely to find it. Otherwise, there'd be far fewer Christians than exist today.

The search for (or discussion of) 'gotchas' to throw at the inerrantists is ultimately unsatisfying and not unlike tilting at windbags. There exist well rehearsed, and ocassionally well-founded, responses so most 'contradictions'.

The case of "Thou shall not 'kill'" probably falls into this category. The coexistence of a prohibition against murder and an acceptance of deadly force was no more contradictory in 1200 BCE than it is today.