A Different View of an "Eye for Eye"
The quotation from Exodus 21:24, "eye for eye, foot for foot..." is often understood to mean that people have a right to revenge an injury to them. This was true in Old Testament times, even though the Gospel of Matthew at 5:38 refers to it and then rejects it at 5:39 ("turn the other cheek") in the New Testament.
What is interesting about the "eye for an eye" quotation, however, is that in Old Testament times it was also meant to put a limit on the amount of vengeance people could take when they suffered at the hands of another.
In ancient times it was customary that if one person from a family killed a person from a different family, the tradition was to kill not only the killer, but also kill everyone in his whole family as well.
So an "eye for an eye" was not only meant to allow for retaliation, but also to limit the extent of the vengeance so that wholesale bloodshed did not occur between families. Vengeance was to be proportional to the harm a person received.
Source: A Short History of Philosophy, Solomon & Higgins
What is interesting about the "eye for an eye" quotation, however, is that in Old Testament times it was also meant to put a limit on the amount of vengeance people could take when they suffered at the hands of another.
In ancient times it was customary that if one person from a family killed a person from a different family, the tradition was to kill not only the killer, but also kill everyone in his whole family as well.
So an "eye for an eye" was not only meant to allow for retaliation, but also to limit the extent of the vengeance so that wholesale bloodshed did not occur between families. Vengeance was to be proportional to the harm a person received.
Source: A Short History of Philosophy, Solomon & Higgins
posted by Jim | 1:28 PM
3 Comments:
hey very interesting trivia you got here jim, unfortunately your blog skin seems to be jumbled up, either way its hard for me to read what u have written.
Hey Jim. I tried to take a look at this site and the formatting is outta wack. Hard to read. The tan backgound is displaced. is that normal?
have skunk
H.S.
You're the second one to tell me that. It looks OK on my screen. I'm going to try to republish. If that doesn't work I'll try to get some help from the Google help.
Thanks.
Jim
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